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. SPARKS 

OF PARIS 


A REALISTIC NOVEL 



A. CURTIS BOND 


NEW YORK 

POLLARD & MOSS 


APi 20 IRS 


42 PARK PLACE AND 37 BARCLAY STREET 


M DCCC LXXXVIII 


■ A) 

\ 



COPYRIGHT, 

1888, 

BY POLLARD & MOSS» 


All rights reserved. 


CONTENTS. 


i*AGB 

I.— -The Students’ Ball, .... 5 

II. —The Duke and the Duchesse, . . 16 

III. — Mrs. Sparks op Paris, . • . • 44 

IV. — The Countess Calls! .... 59 

V. — A Double Robbery, .... 68 

VI. — The Lair of the Roughs, ... 85 

VII^— The Scene of the Crime, ... 91 

VIII.— The Two Accomplices, .... 99 

IX. — Her Trip South, 112 

X. — The Count Relieved, . . . .122 

XI. — Murder 1 138 


( 3 ) 






MRS. SPARKS OF PARIS. 


I. 

THE STUDENTS' BALL. 

From the windows of 4o, Rue de Roche- 
foucauld the omnibuses traveling over the 
breadth of Paris from the Batignolles to the 
Luxembourg, may be seen dragged slowly up 
the hill of the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette. 

Rue de Rochefoucauld lives upon its mem- 
ory; for a few blocks after one turns into it 
from the vicinity of Trinite Church, one 
might imagine oneself in the aristocratic 
neighborhood of the St. Q-ermain : the houses 
are large and imposing, light stone and neat 
balconies, with tastefully arranged curtains 
at the windows of the “apartments meuble.” 
The transition, however, is sudden and by no 

means agreeable ; the first block ends with the 

( 5 ) 


6 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. 


private “hotel” of a Prince, the i; oxt begins 
with a grocery and is succeeded by a row of 
as unpromising tenements as may be found in 
Paris. The proprietor of a bread and cake 
bakery on the opposite corner owns a parrot, 
whose resting-place is upon an unprotected 
perch at the door, fi’om which the wretch 
screeches, “Pain, Gateau, Pain, Ga lean,”, the 
livelong day. 

This is some distance from P.ie Opera 
House, the center for reckoning all distances, 
and it is no short walk up the Cha isse d’An- 
tin, through the Rue Chateaudun, around the 
Trinite, and thus into Rochefoucauld. 

Upon the east bank of the Seine, not far 
from the terminus of the stage route which 
extends up the Lorette Hill, is one of the 
well-known gardens of the city, the rendez- 
vous — for two francs — of all the pleasure- 
loving and adventure-seeki:ig students and 
strangers in this Latin quar ter. 

Nightly the band the Bullier exhausts 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. ^ 

its programme, and the leader unceasingly 
turns the hoard that bears “ Valse, Lanciers, 
Quadrille ” upon its several sides, for when 
the list is exhausted it is recommenced afresh, 
and the slight variations in the airs is the only 
change -that can be discovered from one week’s 
end to another. In the lull of the music the 
crowds stroll about the garden and sit within 
the shady summer-houses at either side, or 
wander up to the diminutive waterfall at the 
further end, and beneath the artfully con- 
structed overhanging rocks, seeming so nat- 
ural in their insecure security. The walks 
are graveled, and settees skirt the edge of 
a grass plat that bears some device in grow- 
ing flowers, and is watered by a tiny fountain, 
ifudding students and adolescent maidens 
steal away into the half-obscured summer- 
houses, and the occasional provocation of a 
laugh, or a by no means startled feminine 
shriek, are about all that indicate the exist- 
ence of animal life. 


8 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. 


Strangers are readily selected, and the true 
Yankee capacity for assimilating his inquis- 
itiveness with a ci’owd is characteristically 
sliown in the presence of the sight-seeing 
New-Englander and his wife. The wife 
frowns upon the indelicacies of a muddy day 
at home, and at the Bullier she stands upon 
tip-toe to peer over the shoulder of some ap- 
plauding Frenchman at the display of female 
agility in an exhilarating farandole. The 
husband is pronounced in his recognition of 
the talent of the “artistes,” and when the 
enchantment of the display has its recess, he 
with his wife on his arm, seeks the fresher 
air of the garden — and forgets all about the 
gyrations and attractions of the waltz. The 
English woman, on the other hand, ignores thfe 
existence of such resorts, and the Englishman 
is by no accident misled into a smile ; he ob- 
jects when a particularly festive young lady 
disturbs the set of his hat through the agency 
of the tip of her slippered foot, and he mur- 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. 


9 


niurs sometliing aboTit outrages and police 
interference ; he resents the perpetuation of 
such places ; he elevates his mediajval eye- 
brows — and comes again the next night. 

It would be very difficult, in a written de- 
scription of the peculiarities of this establish- 
ment, to distinguish one night or one set of 
persons from another in the life of the Bullier, 
for so closely does each I’esemble its fellow in 
its incidents, its visitors, and its follies as to 
put distinction q^uite out of the question. Yet, 
if one could picture an exceptionally gay 
gathering, an uninterrupted shout of laughter 
from the first quadrille to the concluding 
valse, it would be an excellent mind-picture of 
the evening of July 14, 1880, and of the scene 
which greeted two young men, who, pushing 
aside the swinging doors at the enti'ance, 
stepped into the room from the slightly raised 
platform that was immediately within, and 
from which a view of the dancers could be 


10 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. 


Both of these men were French : they had 
the national abbreviation of stature, the char- 
acteristic blonde beard carefxilly .trimmed to 
a point, and atrocionsly-iitting clothes — dis- 
tinctive featxires of the true Parisian. They 
gesticulated and shrugged their shoulders 
and twirled their canes, and wore naiTow- 
brimmed hats, and did everything else that 
writers, from the time of Carlo Magno to the 
present, have claimed to be the particular 
habits and manners of the pure, unmixed and 
unadulterated Gaul. There was only one 
point apparently where they emphatically 
and positively departed from the tradition 
which story-tellers have made for their coun- 
trymen — they were in earnest, dead earnest. 
One of the young men was agitating his index 
finger in a manner that must have impressed 
his associate with the very essence of credu- 
lity, and the associate’s face was as grave and 
as thoughtful as if the confusion about him 
was of a sombre rather than a joyful nature, 


THE STUDENTS' BALL. ll 

If the American fashion prevailed in France 
or Germany, or in any foreign country, in 
fact, for mankind to resolve himself into an 
individual sewing-cii'cle or afternoon-tea, and 
strain his sense of hearing to the capacity of 
absorbing all that his neighbor might be tell- 
ing in confidence to his friend, he might have 
caught chance words that would have given 
much food for thought and much uncertainty 
as to the meaning of the strange sentences. 

There was quiet talk about a boy, a buy 
without a name it seemed, and one of the 
young men appeared to be wonderfully anx- 
ious to provide a pedigree for a certain youth 
in whom, judging from the words and the 
tone, he took an unparalleled interest. But 
the other, in an unsatisfactory way, threw 
out the hint that a woman whose name would 
be worthy of the child, might be a very diffi- 
cult person to persuade into any such trans- 
action, which, looked upon even in its most 
favorable light, ’.vas, ;it least, a questionable 


12 


THM STUDENTS' BALL. 


one. And at this the young man became per- 
suasive, and addressing his friend as “Doc- 
toi’,” impressed upon him that the discovery 
of this very desirable but naturally rather 
punctilious female, was the one duty that 
constituted his share of the scheme. 

And then the Doctor seemed lost in thought; 
he soliloquized aloud, that the requirements 
of his friend, the Count, as he casually called 
him, were indeed most exacting ; he insisted 
irpon a young lady of nobility, of noble birth; 
she must, however, be ill — so ill, in fact, that 
according to his, the Doctor’s, opinion, she 
would not survive the ceremony six months 
at most. Then the Doctor ceased muttering, 
and the Count nodded an eager approval of 
each proviso. The Doctor was wrapt in 
thought, and presently his face brightened, 
and he declared he knew just the party who 
could answer every one of the conditions 
named. The young girl was dying, there was 
no question of that — dying of consumption. 


f 


] 

THE STUDENTS^ BALL. 13 

But Avoiild she consent to such a sacrifice of 
self-respect, even under the circumstances? 
Would she embitter her few remaining days 
by such an act ? Would she sell herself, that 
she might pose as the legitimate mother of an 
illegitimate child ? These queries were more 
than he could answer — he must question her 
and find out ; there was one thing in his 
favor, one coign of vantage that he might use: 
the girl was poor, her father was poverty 
itself ; it was a struggle between starving, 
respectability, and downright beggary. An 
appeal to her love for her parents, an offer to 
provide for their last years, might have its 
effect upon her scruples, and bring about the 
result they sought. 

4^ The Count was one of those persistent and 
impulsive natures that sees in every,^pe a 
^certainty, and the hint of some assumed 
means of gratification was seized as the 
very assurance of success. So he told the 
Doctor what*he might offer as inducements to 


14 


The students'' baTjL. 


tlie young lady : a comfortable death ; peac;6, 
plenty, and one hundred thousand francs to 
leave to her father and mother. The Doctor 
seemed to draw inspiration from these sugges- 
tions, and promising his best efforts, he and 
the Count disappeared amid the crowd re- 
entering the ball-room. 

The music was opening for a quadrille, and 
the fortunate possessors of front-row seats at 
the tables upon the elevated platform extend- 
ing along one side of the room, settled them- 
selves with a satisfactory sigh at their close 
proximity to the set being formed upon the 
floor, while the gar9ons smiled at the good 
results of the bait they had thrown out in the 
shape of well-arranged chairs, whose occu- 
pants would much prefer to order renewed 
dishes of questionable cream than to sur- 
render their places and lose the pleasures 
which the frivolities and eccentricities of the 
dance promised them. Many unfortunates 
based their hopes upon the ■m’ong set, and 


THE STUDENTS’ BALL. ’ 


16 


when they discovered the spirits of these par- 
ticular dancei’s were not at the altitudinous 
point necessary to make everything pass off 
satisfactorily, there was a general stampede 
to some other and more esthetic quartette, 
where the delights of the hour drowned all 
other considerations, and the feet of the 
dancers appeared hardly to touch the floor. 

Again and again were these scenes repeat- 
ed until musicians, participants, and audi- 
ence, tired with the exertion of doing or see- 
ing, found their way into the streets, and 
those who lived upon the route of an all-night 
“’bus,” went to sleep in its capacious seat 
until their house was reached, while those 
less favored walked and questioned them- 
selves whether the sport was really worth the 
trip. 


II. 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 

The fourth floor of the tenement at 45, Eue 
de Rochefoucauld is divided into three suites 
of apartments. The front, or larger suite, con- 
sists of two bedrooms, a parlor, dining-room, 
kitchen, and ante-room. The furniture, what 
there remains of it, shows that it had been 
elegant in its time and acquainted with more 
pretentious surroundings. The rooms are 
fitted with the good taste peculiar to the peo- 
ple — a taste that can accomplish excellent 
results with scanty means ; curtains and hang- 
ings shield the windows, and the doors are 
protected by portieres ; a monstrous chande- 
lier of nickel and gilt, a relic, evidently, and 
plentifully supplied with candles, hangs over 
a table in the center of the parlor and consti- 
tutes the point d,e r^sUtance of the apart. 
(W) 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 17 


ment ; the floors are painfully clean and 
well polished, the ornaments conspicuously 
scarce. 

Upon the 15th day of July, 1880, Marie, the 
maid, the honiie, ^^Jlo refused to leave her 
master and mistress w'hen their fortune was 
lost, and they were reduced to the necessities 
of a life of poverty, was dusting the chairs 
and table and humming a popular air be- 
neath her breath. The Duchesse d’Almaby had 
gone out quite early, to make some purchases 
for the day’s necessities, and the Duke had 
followed her, hoping, as he had hoped for 
months, that something would occur to better ’ 
his condition. 

A ring at the bell put an end to Marie’s 
singing, and she threw her dusting-cloth be- 
hind the curtain as she hastened to admit the 
baker’s boy, whom she imagined might be 
one of the Princes her master had at some 
time known, and who had finally come to pay 
his respects and legye a substantial remem- 


18 THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 

brance ; for Marie, be it understood, with the 
true shift of the grisette, had no pride above 
accepting a means of avoiding starvation, and 
was often tempted to find fault with the Duke 
for his conceit, as she termed it, in the same 
direction. 

But it was not a Prince ; the stolid counten- 
ance of the baker’s boy had nothing of the 
aristocracy in it and Marie expressed the dis- 
appointment she felt as she turned back to 
her dusting, with the injunction to the youth 
to lay his rolls on the dining- table. The only 
reply of the boy was a grin, a leer, a mocking 
chuckle, as he told Marie he had no rolls, no 
bread, nothing for the Duke — how he rolled 
that title on his tongue like a young Eobes- 
pierre, —-nothing — except a bill. A bill for 
ten francs ; think of it as he did ! Mon Dieu, 
what a sum to him ; it represented several 
weeks’ hard work— that is, a boy’s hard work 
— climbing stairs, gibing the servants, making 
faces at the concierge ; it represented good, 


^rHE DUKE A. YE THE DUCHESSE, 19 

solid enjoyment at the theaters that he longed 
for, but could never participate in, for he 
never hoped to have ten francs ; he mechan- 
ically t(5ok a few sous from his pocket and 
studied them, and then he brought out a cen- 
time or so — those provincial pieces that indi- 
cate the very depth of French picayunish- 
hess ; to him the sum was extreme, and he 
felt Justified by the magnitude of the amount 
in intimating that his master was not estab- 
lished in business for the purpose of support- 
ing impecunious nobility, and he went fur- 
ther, and perhaps a little out of his way, to 
insinuate something against the Duke’s in- 
tention, as well as his ability, so far as a ques- 
tion of settlement was concerned. 

'Now, Marie had toiled upon promises for 
many years ; the assurance of diamond ear- 
rings upon her next birthday, had been re- 
ceived with as honest and sincere thanks as if 
they had been handed her in the very flesh 
itself ; she had toiled for love— she knew the 


20 the duke and the duchesse. 

Ducliesse would pay her if she could ; she be- 
lieved the Duke would one day be able to do 
so ; occasionally she rebelled at her master’s 
inactivity, and his principle that the* last of 
a royal line should live without labor, come 
what might, and she thought it was carry- 
ing pride rather beyond the bounds of rea- 
son when he, returning home one day 
with a Napoleon he had won at ecarte, he 
should have handed it over to a sister of 
charity, who, at her own (Marie’s) earnest 
solicitation, had called to offer help to the 
suffering family, but whose story the Duke 
interrupted before she had made her purpose 
known, by handing her the coin to dispense 
as her best judgment should dictate among 
the needy poor, saying himself thus the mor- 
tification of being a charitable object. 

All these things annoyed Marie, ceidainly, 
but that annoyance was never upon the sur- 
face, and the thought of a baker putting an 
end to their existence for the sake of a miser- 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 21 

able ten francs, the merest fi'action of her 
< claim, aroused all her spirit of resentment, 
and she exhibited s\ich evidences of hostility 
toward the boy that he quickly considered' 
how he could best effect an escape, and when 
the maid warned him to be gone, shook her 
cloth in a vigorous and threatening man- 
ner, and glanced significantly several times 
toward the broom, which was within easy 
reach, he made up his mind that her warning 
was really for his good, and he forthwith 
vacated as rapidly as was consistent with the 
dangers of a winding stairway in a more than 
oi-dinarily greasy and uncertain condition. 

Half-way do'wn the stairs he encountered 
the Duchesse wearily climbing to her rooms, 
discouragement marked upon her face, and 
too noticeable to escape the quick eye of the 
youngster. He hurried past her and stopped, 
looked back, and rubbed his ear — all French 
boys rub their ears when they don’t know 
what else to do. He watched until she disap- 


22 the duke and the duchesse. 

peared within her apartment and the door 
closed behind her. Then he slowly followed; 
one minnte he would hesitate, and then go 
forward; he appeared to be carrying on some 
mental calculation, and when he had come to 
its solution he ran rapidly up the remainder 
of the way,. laid four large rolls at the door, 
and gave the bell an earnest jerk. Then he 
placed himself at a safe distance below the 
landing, and when Marie answered his sum- 
mons he shouted at her, that she might have 
the old rolls, anyhow — he would pay for them 
himself; and then he made off, as if even this 
service was not sufficient to appease the wrath 
that his previous indiscreet remarks had kin- 
dled. 

Marie acted always upon principle ; hei 
anger was aroused only by acts which she 
considered flagrant and unworthy, and being 
aroused, its course must necessai’ily be run 
before it could with any degree of dignity be 
smothered. So' it happened that when she 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 23 


opened the door and found the rolls and 
heard the youngster’s voice, she could not 
refrain an inaudible though none the less em- 
phatic growl at the audacity of the wretch, 
while at the same moment the thought that 
the Duchesse had returned empty-handed 
from the stores, and the family larder was at 
an ebb that betokened more positively than 
anything else could, the unsatisfactory con- 
dition of the family treasury, prompted a 
seizure of the offering, and she allayed her 
temper with the farinaceous gift, disappear- 
ing behind the door, burdened with smiles 
and buns. 

The first inquiry of the Duchesse upon. re- 
covering from the asthmatic effect of four 
fiights of steep and winding stairs, was for 
her daughter Jeanne, to which Marie encour- 
agingly replied that her cheerfulness had 
been so unmistakable during the short ab- 
sence of her mother, that it led her to believe 
the period of actual decline was approaching 


24 the duke and the duchesse. 

a most vital crisis or a most agreeable termi- 
nation. The Duchesse had one of those timid 
natures, prone to see danger in everything 
unusual ; her fears had been fully aroused in 
Jeanne’s case, and while she was the fij'st to 
discover that consumption was eating av/ay 
her life, she, at the same moment, learned 
that the disease was due rather to an alfection 
of the mind than from the weakness of her 
physical being. The Duchesse was too familiar 
with the peculiarities of the world to doubt 
that in her daughter was revived a malady 
that had been extinct, certainly, for a genera- 
tion, and she was suffering from an excess of 
that entirely natural, perhaps, but altogether 
obsolete complaint spoken of in connection 
with the heart. The symptoms in this case 
were confined to incessant writing, desire to 
be secluded, an unruffled calmness and gen- 
eral resignation to the unkind fate pursuing 
her ; the more startling phases began with a 
thoroughly refined cough, given in a tone 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 25 

clearly indicating it to be one more of the 
afflictions to which she had. become recon- 
ciled, and. was regarded, as such a trifle com- 
pared. to the other evils, that it neither called, 
for nor received any attention whatever. Then 
besides, it was an additional burden, and 
when one is melancholy from love, one re- 
gards all persecutions, whether by nature or 
by man, very properly its own, and rather 
chooses to hug them in a tearful and silent 
agony, than to make efforts to vanquish them 
by some simple pharmaceutical remedy. It 
becomes a religion mth them to suffer; 
they urge the tortures of the fakir and the 
enthusiast, and claim the right to toiment 
their soul for an equally holy sentiment ; 
their passion makes them unconscious of the 
merely physical, and nothing short of posi- 
tive prostration will satisfy their thirst for 
bodily pain. 

With Jeanne the demand was so unques- 
tionably emphatic, because the love was un- 


26 THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 

questionably hopeless, that consumption, pure 
and simple, became a positive necessity. 
There were several persons to be convinced 
that her love was genuine ; the Duchesse was 
suscei)tible and impressionable, — a headache, 
or perhaps a mild form of dyspepsia, if it 
were properly managed, might answer with 
her ; but then, there was the Duke, and there 
was also Marie, — they must be satisfied, and 
one was of such a disposition as would never 
notice any external trouble, while the other 
regarded life in such a very flippant manner 
as to require the most startling evidence that 
it really was anything different. All the les- 
ser diseases or disorders had been tried upon 
these members of the family, with the reg- 
ular accompaniment of sighs and resigned 
looks, and as they passed unnoticed, absolute 
self-respect drove the young lady successive- 
ly into colds, fevers, epidemics, and finally 
into a well-matured case of consumption. 

By this time the Duke, her papa, and 


THE DUKE AXD THE DUCHESSE. 27 

Marie, her maid, were convinced that she 
loved. 

The Duke, having been married forty years, 
was disposed to look upon love as a very pe- 
culiar, and not altogether natural growth; 
while Marie, being born a few years before 
the Duke and the Duchesse wedded, would 
have sneered openly at the thought, had any 
other than her mistress been the victim. 

When the 'cause of Jeanne’s illness was 
learned, it became desirable to discover the 
individuality of the second party to the trans- 
action, and ascertain whether he, too, was af- 
fected in the same unfortunate manner ; not, 
perhaps, that anything could be done for him 
or for her either, but to satisfy the mere pas- 
sion toward investigation. 

This, then, was the condition of everything 
and of everybody at the very moment when 
Marie laid the rolls upon the table and re- 
plied to the question of the Duchesse, as has 
been indicated. 


28 the duke and the duchesse. 

As tlie Duchesse turned to lier daughter’s 
room, to greet Jeanne, who was entering the 
parlor, a step at the door caused them in- 
voluntarily to rest in each other’s arms 
until the Duke apj)eared. His face indicated 
an unusual melancholy, and after embracing 
his wife and child, he sank into the one easy- 
chair that remained to them, buried his face 
in his hands, and gave himself to the misery 
of his thoughts. 

The Duke was certainly growing old ; he 
had been wonderfully vigorous during his 
life, energetic in all that he undertook, and 
with the fullest confidence in his own re- 
sources ; but time and trouble had made great 
changes in him ; unwise speculation had en- 
gulfed his inheritance ; his want of knowledge 
of the world interfered with his efforts to earn 
a living, and the tradition of his family that 
it was undignified for the heir of a noble line 
to work, left him absolutely nothing to rely 
upon other than the gentlemanly relaxation 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE, 29 


of ecarte or baccarat, at neither of which was 
he noticeably proficient, or even encourag- 
ingly fortunate. He was nervous and forget- 
ful ; he repeated the same question many 
times ; he gave the impression of doubting 
his friends’ truthfulness in this repetition, as 
though he w^ould detect them in a misstate- 
ment by cleverly, wording his interrogations, 
and yet it was only the result of an unnatural 
cunning coming from a partial remembrance 
of his failing, and the uncertainty with him 
whether he had really made the same inquiry 
before, and an effort to so frame it upon this 
occasion that it might not appear objection- 
able if it did chance to be the twentieth time, 
more or less. He was careless at meals, gar- 
rulous upon trifles, and lacked continuity in 
his conversation : rapidly changed the sub- 
jects, neither having any application to the 
other; he would interrupt with a frivolous 
and unimportant suggestion in the middle of 
his companion’s discourse ; his thoughts never 


30 THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 

appeared to be upon tbe matter under discus- 
sion, and he shuffled when walking. These 
indicated loss of power, failing of mental and 
physical abilities, — unmistakable evidences 
that the Duke had grown old ; and as he sat 
upon the chair, bowing his head upon his 
hands, he was the embodiment of despair, the 
wreck of a life, a disappointed, penniless, 
helpless man. The teachings of his youth 
had gathered in strength with his years, and 
their idiosyncrasies became stronger as his 
brain became weaker. Peculiarities of early 
training, that had been such trifles as to 
call for no attention during his vigor, were 
now revived, burnished and exaggerated into 
principles. Other peculiarities that had been 
marked, now became bigotries ; he indulged 
in scandal, though this was necessarily 
limited, as his listeners seldom exceeded his 
wife and daughter ; he was gossipy ; he 
moved the furniture about unnecessarily and 
nervously ; he changed the position of his 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 31 

knife and fork a score of times before he be- 
gan to eat ; he was easily fatigued, readily 
injured, and was prone to accidents. There 
was no question about it, the Duke was old. 

He had been particularly unfortunate that 
day; he had relied upon a small loan from a 
friend, but the friend, failing to comprehend 
tlie terrible importance of the trifling sum, 
for the reason that the true condition of the 
Duke was known to none of his associates, 
had .gone to the Provinces for a jaunt, and 
taken the small loan with him. Such acci- 
dents affected the Duke ; aside from the mere 
failure to get the money, the doubt was ever 
with him whether or not such mishaps were 
intended as slights, or whether, in fact, they 
were mere inadvertences. 

Jeanne took advantage of the interruption 
of her father’s entrance, to withdraw to her 
own room ; her heartaches were so severe that 
it excused the apparent indifference to those 
of her parents; besides, had she not been 


82 THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 

through this same scene day after day 1 was 
she not a sufferer too, as well as they, from 
the same poverty? and, finally, what was 
hunger, anyway, when one grieved for an 
unfortunate love ? 

And so, Jeanne went to her room and her 
diary, and poured out her thoughts and 
troubles in ink. Tire Duchesse deceived her 
husband into the belief that the house was 
provided mth the requirements of the day, 
and sought to divert his mind from the 
troubles of finances, to the equally serious 
question of their daughter’s health. 

The Duke was soon acquainted with the 
particulars of Jeanne’s illness as they yere 
understood by his wife, and he discovered an 
unusual interest in the subject. He loved his 
child, and he respected^her ; she was so unlike 
him, her disposition was such a gentle one ; 
she said so little and thought so much ; her 
temper was sweet, unassuming ; she was will- 
ing to be imposed upon for the sake of peace, 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE, 33 

aud she had enjoyed the privilege accorded 
all such characters of meeting those who were 
quite willing to impose upon her. Her bear- 
ing was dignified and her manners were the 
accompaniment of patrician blood. Unusual 
for a French woman, she was a blonde ; her 
figure was slender and graceful, and the ever- 
present sadness upon her face was the reflec- 
tion of a life of privations, an unmeasured 
sympathy for her parents’ smuggles, and lat- 
terly the encouragement of her secret affec- 
tion. Her education was ordinary, without 
being finished, for the limited resources of 
her family had forbidden other than the 
learning offered by the State. A natui’al wit 
compensated in p)art for this, though it must 
be confessed that she was neither unusually 
brilliant nor yet uncommonly bright. Her 
charm lay in the equanimity of her temper 
and the unselfishness of her actions. 

Such a mental picture of Jeanne passed 

through the father’s mind as he gazed upon 
3 


34 the duke akd the duchesse. 

the ground, action paralyzed by the intent- 
ness of his thoughts. As he stared at the 
boards he made honest efforts to concentrate 
in his mind the circumstances surrounding 
the problem of their existence. Was it to be 
a futile trial ? would he waver to other less 
important subjects % Pictures of J eanne mar- 
ried and comfortable flitted before him ; his 
manhood was asserted, and he forgot himself; 
he consigned his own future to the chances 
of fate, and cared only to see his wife and 
daughter imovided for. The feeling seemed to 
give him energy; he roused himself; he threw 
off the incubus of his life, and resolved to 
accomplish marvels that very day. It was the 
first time in years that he had been stirred 
to the heart; he had become so accustomed 
to poverty and misfortune that he had ceased 
to struggle ; he looked upon them as in- 
stances of such unmistakable injustice that it 
was needless to contend with them. 

To emphasize his resolution, he struck the 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 35 

arm of the chair a vigorous blow, and sprang 
to his feet as with renewed youth, just at the 
moment that a ring at the door announced a 
visitor. 

Dr. Cold (his name, in fact, was Froid, but 
as he was at one time professor of English in 
a Parisian academy, he realized, with true 
French intuition, that it was not altogether 
the proper thing to retain the French of a 
name which could be so readily translated 
into the language he undertook to teach) 
was an occasional caller at the home of the 
d’Almabys ; he had taken an interest in 
Jeanne, and whenever his professional en- 
gagements permitted, he would pass an hour, 
more or less, pleasantly in her company ; he 
tried to revive her spirits ; he gave her what 
amusement was possible ; the Theatre Fran- 
cais had not lost Sarah Bernhardt, and the 
‘■‘■Pilules du Diahle'^ was at the Chatelet; the 
Hippodrome and the Cirque d’Et6 were open, 
and it was the Doctor’s own fault if he could 


36 THE DUKE AKD THE DUCHESSE, 

not find some means for diver! ijig the mind 
of his patient. His attentions were so kindly 
and so disinterested that he became a most 
welcome guest, and Jeanne was as happy to 
see him as were her father and mother. 

So it was that when the Duke entered the 
parlor in response to tlie snmmons of I^larie 
announcing the Doctor as the caller, that he 
greeted him most cordial wisliing him 
much health and mncli happiness. The 
Doctor was iii excellent spirits, jocose and 
light-hearted ; he rallied the Duke ui)on his 
appearance, and declared he looked younger 
by one of their national revolutions than he 
had when he last saw him ; he inquired after 
the good Duchesse and the invalid, and then 
drawing his chair closer to that of his royal 
companion he said he had called on business 
— business of a delightful character ; he was, 
in fact, the bearer of good tidings — the envoy 
of a Count ; he had been commissioned to 
bring joy into the home of the d’Almabys, 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 37 

and impart joy into that of another; in short, 
he had been intrusted by the Count de Lima 
to solicit the hand of Jeanne in marriage ; 
the Count was a man of no little importance 
and considerable wealth ; he was steady and 
circumspect in his habits, generous and noble 
in his life ; it was true he had not the honor 
of an acquaintance with the lady, but he had 
known of her since she was a child ; he had 
watched her at play, had followed her years 
as they accumulated, and found she was as 
innocent and as sweet at twenty as she was at 
twelve; he had loved her in silence, and now 
he was ready to claim her. Could he have 
her ? His mamma waited a reply to call and 
ask the honor of the alliance ; and he inter- 
rupted the Duke’s attempted explanation 
that his daughter was dying, with the assur- 
ance that it was a knowledge of this fact that 
urged the Count to immediate decision, for he 
felt a change of climate— a trip to Italy, or a 
toTir of the watering-places, would restore the 


38 the duke and the duchesse. 

health and spirits of his bride. Could the 
Duke hesitate? would it not be bringing a 
new life to his child ? would she not find here 
the means of lengthening her life ? And as 
if to show the very depth of his goodness of 
heart, the Coxrnt agreed to place one hundred 
thousand francs at Jeanne’s disposal the day 
they married. Think of the good that would 
accomplish ! The Duchesse was not really 
well ; a foreign trip would benefit her amaz- 
ingly; it would restore her; it would give 
her new strength. 

And the Duke wavered ; there was no ob- 
jection that he knew of to the mamage ; it 
would certainly be a desirable thing for 
Jeanne ; at any rate it would not shorten her 
existence. Here was the opportunity he had 
just been thinking of, praying for ; the 
thought of it, or of gaining it, had brought 
him to his feet and a resolntion not half an 
hour previous ; he saw ease for the Duchesse 
and for himself, leaving out of the qxiestion 


THE DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 39 

the advantages to Jeanne, and he tuqied to 
heartily accept the oJQfeiv when the Doctor, 
with a smile that suggested the non-import- 
ance of his communication, said that the 
Count had advised him of a little indiscretion 
some years old, which resulted in a boy of 
tender age whom he had always kept about 
him, and he hoped in marrying that his wife 
would be willing to accept the guardianship, 
and become a mother to the child. It was a 
creditable act, and might be done with all 
honor. 

The guardianship of the child, or the as- 
surance that the wife would do her full duty 
toward educating and bringing the boy up, 
would in themselves have been no cause for 
objection with the Duke; such understand- 
ings are not only legalized by law, but, very 
properly, sanctioned by society in France ; 
but the question had suggested itself to the 
Duke so soon as the Doctor stated his bus- 
iness : Why should a rich and titled stranger 


40 the duke and the duchesse. 

seek a penniless, dying girl % and until the 
child was bi'ought into the subject this ques- 
tion was the one puzzle of the situation. Here 
was the answer, this remark of the Doctor, 
and it stung him as some venomous thing, 
and brought him to his feet with an energy 
that surprised and startled his companion. 

So his daughter was sought in marriage to 
give a name to an illegitimate child ; the title 
of an honorable house was to be degraded 
into an excuse for the existence of a disowned 
infant, and worse than all, it was wanted but 
temporarily ; his daughter was selected be- 
cause she mxist soon die, when the Count 
would be at liberty to marry the real mother. 
This was the scheme, and the Doctor had the 
effrontery, the arrogance, to come to him with 
such a proposition, and to talk of honor, the 
honor of a bourgeoise, not the honor of a 
nobleman. What had he done to call forth 
such an insult ? of what had his poor daugh- 
ter been guilty that she should ever be enter- 


THE DUHE AND THE DUCHESSE. 41 


tained in connection with such a thought ? It 
was useless for the Doctor to urge the great 
advantage to Jeanne of a tidp to the warmer 
climate of Marseilles or Florence ; needless to 
revert to the declining health of the Du- 
chesse ; better death, extinction, annihilation, 
a thousand times better than life at such a cost, 
at the expense of honor, integrity, decency. 
Though poverty, undisguised, had been the 
companion of the d’Almabys for years, though 
wmnt and privation had left their mark upon 
Jeanne, undermined the health of the Du- 
chesse, and unsettled the mind of the Duke, 
though this had been accomplished, and worse 
than this was to be expected, still the pride 
of a royal line was left them, and he hurled 
it with aU his force at the head of the offend- 
ing and confused Doctor. The lip of the 
Duke curled with scorn as he denounced Cold, 
and as the last words were shrieked at him to 
leave the house, the Duke, overcome with the 
excitement of the moment, exhausting the 


42 the duke akd the duchesse. 

artificial strength which indignation had given 
him, sank into the corner of the sofa. 

As the Doctor hesitated, abashed, hardly 
knowing what step to take next, and about 
concluding that his exit v-as the one way left 
him out of the difficulty, the portiere was 
thrown hastily aside, and the Duchesse, car- 
rying in her hand an open diary, hurried to 
her husband, apparently oblivious to the pres- 
ence of another, and eagerly exclaiming that 
she had discovered the secret at last, she 
pushed the open book into the hand of the 
Duke. Involuntarily his eyes sought the 
written page ; he started, read, became ab- 
sorbed in his reading, lost himself in the 
words before him, when with a suddenness 
that was a counterpart of the energy shown a 
few moments before, he cast the book into 
the corner, and, springing to the Doctor’s 
side, grasped his hand, shook it, cried over it, 
and pressing it to his heart, called him his 
best friend, the savior of his family, and 


T&E DUKE AND THE DUCHESSE. 43 

sobbed out the proposal of the Count was ac- 
cepted, aud all that remained was to invite 
the Count’s mother to call. 

Astounded and astonished by the rapid 
change in the decision and manner of the 
Duke, the Doctor stood irresolute, and it was 
notiintil he had been gently hurried from the 
door that he could gather his senses. 


Ill 


MRS. SPARKS OF PARIS. 

Mbs. Sparks was a fascinating lady of 
some thirty years, not more than six inches 
over five feet in height, and weighing, say, one 
hundred and forty pounds, with the pounds 
very judiciously and attractively distributed, 
— a fact she prided herself on not a little, and 
one she regarded as no small element in her 
social success. Had the ever- welcome Butter- 
cup been materialized by some French author, 
she would, no doubt, have been modeled after 
Mrs. Sparks as a “phrmp and pleasing per- 
son.” 

There is no more distressing experience 
than to be conscious of a fascinating foim 
gracefully making its way along the crowded 
walk before us, and as one hastens his steps 

and passes the delicately clad foot and the irre- 

( 44 ) 


MRS. SPARK'S OF PARIS. 


45 


sistible Jersey, to find a face that would cause 
the Veiled Prophet to blush, or discover the 
vivacious and willing thirty to be an austere 
and decorous sixty tricked out to cause disap- 
X)ointinent-~a living paraphrase of the shadow 
mankind is supposed to be, and the decej)tions 
he is said to pursue. 

Mrs. Sparks was' not plain ; her figure was 
delicious, her face entrancing ; hers was not 
the innocent nor the perpetually astonished 
expression of the bread-and-butter girl; it was 
the intelligent countenance of one who had 
lived with her eyes open, and gave the im- 
pression that while her personal regard for 
the conventionalities was strict, she was con- 
scious that others, or at any rate some others, 
entertained this regard in a lesser degree, and 
she was too familiar with the eccentricities of 
the day to either marvel or be shocked at such 
a variation from her own views. 

In fact she was a woman of the world, and 
her apartments at 29, Avenue Josephine, the 


46 


M/?S. SPAJiKS OF PARTS. 


premiere, were the resort of the literary, 
political, and social celebrities of Paris. She 
was familiar with the writings of every im- 
portant author from Balzac to Canon Kingsley; 
Bunyan, Farrar, Stanley, and the lesser lights, 
were af her tongue upon the instant, and if a 
bishop or even an American clergyman who 
had forsaken the “ cloth ” for a Parisian life 
chanced to be among her company, she could 
recall j)assages from the contemporaries of 
Josephus and follow it up through Martin 
Tupper, finally touching their innermost fancy 
with an excerpt from Walt Whitman; her ac- 
complishments in the frivolities were equally 
conspicuous, and she was poetry itself to the 
music of Waldteufel’s latest; she claimed 
the honor, in common with all other French 
school-children, of having placed a crown of 
roses upon the head of Victor Hugo; and she 
possessed a husband who enjoyed the singular 
distinction of never having been decorated. 

When it is said that Mrs. Sparks enter- 


MJ^S, SPARK^S OF PARIS, 


47 


tained the best-known people in Palis, it 
must not be understood that this also in- 
cluded Mr. Sparks, for that gentleman being 
a very clever and a very discriminating party, 
made it convenient to be absent when many 
of his wife’s acquaintances called, so that 
there were a considerable number who, being 
quite well known to the wife, had never en- 
joyed the pleasure of meeting the husband. 
Such friends found consolation for this neg- 
lect in the thought that they might pass Mr. 
Sparks upon the stairs without being recog- 
nized as a visitor, and might even be mis- 
taken for an upper tenant, all of which served 
to convince them that ladies with suspicious 
husbands would find it advantageous always 
to have, at least, one flat on the floor above. 

Mrs. Sparks had formed the most desirable 
social connections, and her society was courted 
by a distinctively refined company; each 
Sunday saw her at the Eglise St. Augustine, 
Tvhere, with prayer-book in hand, she closely 


48 


MRS. SPARKS OF PkRlS. 


followed the words of the reverend teacher, 
and devoutly and demurely observed the 
proprieties of her religion. Nothing was al- 
lowed to interfere with her Monday dispen- 
sation of charities, and her douceur., at the 
entrance of the church, was liberal and un- 
ostentatious. She consistently crossed her- 
self at the passing of every funeral, and she 
virtuously and properly frowned upon the 
example of Pm’e Hyacinthe ; she was an ultra- 
montane when the Jesuits were expelled from 
France, and she entertained Gambetta the 
same evening in the most hospitable manner. 
Her outward conduct, in a word, was irre- 
proachable, and as she had never been the 
heroine of a scandal, her reputation was un- 
sullied and her fame was fair. Her female 
friends, — and with the good judgment of a 
thoughtful woman, she cultivated only a few, 
— made her a participant in their secrets 
and gossip, and poured out their mutual 
surprise aud condemnation at and upon 


MJ!S. SPARKS OF PARIS. 


49 


some recent publication of another’s short- 
conaings. 

When a woman so far forgets herself as to 
permit the public to participate in her knowl- 
edge of current events, the indignation of her 
associates at the carelessness is generally em- 
phatic and unmistakable. Mrs. Sparks had 
avoided such unpleasantness most success- 
fully, and so long as this good fortune fol- 
lowed her, she could count ' upon the con- 
stancy of her associates, notwithstanding a 
certain boy that had been adopted by the 
lady and her husband, and bearing such a 
striking resemblance to the former that she 
might have been mistaken for a closer rela- 
tion than that of foster-mother, had there 
been any reason to doubt her assurances on 
the subject. But then, Mr. Sparks explained 
that it was a child his wife had found and 
become interested in during some one of her 
charitable excursions, and had insisted upon 

removing from its surrorrndings. 

4 


60 


MRh. SPARES OF PARIS. 


The evening following that upon which the 
reader was introducect to the Bullier, Mrs. 
Sparks entertained a brilliant company at 
dinner. The best of Parisian cookery was 
served ; it Avas impossible to distinguish by 
sight or taste the character of the dishes. 
The spice of the hcevf a la mode was raised 
in the same garden, and in the same bed, with 
that in which the delicate little potatoes were 
tried, and indescribable compositions, much 
resembling birds, but really something en- 
tirely dissimilar, it Avas impossible to dissect. 
The salad and the poire eonde were distinct- 
ively delicate, and the wines, as could be ex- 
pected, Avere especially rich. It Avas such a 
dinner as Bignon, or the Maison d’Ore, or the 
Trois Feres, in their time, AAmild serve, and it 
melted away like a delightful dream before 
the thoroughly business energies of a score 
of visitors. 

Among the gentlemen was the Count de 
Lima, a nobleman of the ante-bellum days, 


MRS. SPARKS OF PARIS. 


61 


one who had lost his i)OSsessions at the time 
of the Prussian war, and when the Commu- 
nistic cloud engulfed Paris and swept away 
the landmarks of the nobility, it took with it 
the property of the Count, and left his father 
with a house and a few thousand francs. But 
the Count’s father had invested in Southern 
cotton before the American Eebellion, and 
was looking forward with no little anxiety to 
the election of an American President who 
would favor the payruent of just such claims 
as this gentleman represented. 

This is the only interest the French take in 
American politics, though it is widespread, 
for creditors of the Southern Confederacy 
who are willing to become recognized cred- 
itors of the United States, are numerous on 
French soil. There is a strong disposition 
upon the part of American papers to talk of the 
“ Sister Eepublic,” and indulge in endearing 
terms toward the government which more near- 
ly appi'oaches this nation than does any other. 


62 


MRS. SPARKS OF PARIS. 


American families and tourists visit Paris in 
vast numbers yearly, and support the bric-a- 
brac trade, the notion business of that city, 
by their generous expenditures ; yet the 
knowledge of America is very limited to the 
Parisian. BrazU is the French embodiment 
of the American continent ; any observant 
visitor to Paris who has had the curiosity to 
discover the extent of the native acquaint- 
ance with American geography must have 
been impressed with the entire indifference 
to every place north of the equator. Wheth- 
er it is that the more extended connections 
with South America have expunged North 
America from their minds, or whether their 
geographies are deficient in Mercator’s system 
of laying out the continents, is a matter for 
conjecture. But, be it as it may, the mind 
Francais refuses to grapple with more than 
one locality for this side of the ocean. 

However the Count was able, tlie Count’s 
father possessed a talent— a talent for making 


MUS. SPARKS OF PARIS. 


63 


money, — strange development for a scion of 
an old honse, but witb it he partly redeemed 
his fortune and restored, in a measure, the 
standing of his family. The Count, too, by a 
wise investment in oil and it was rumored by 
a lucky ticket in the Bartholdi Statue lottery, 
had acquired quite a competency of his own, 
so that the one hundred thousand francs he 
oifered the Doctor the previous night at the 
BuUier for disposal upon a wife, w'as by no 
means the extent of his resources ; besides, 
Mrs. Sparks had a fortune in her own right 
and she was w'illing to place that at the 
Count’s command should he require the aid. 

In a lull between the discussions of a recent 
scientific w^ork upon the best method of coin- 
ing a new word, written by a member of the 
French Academy and very kindly chaperoned 
into notice upon this occasion by the hostess, 
Mrs. Sparks found an opportunity to with- 
draw with the Count into the seclusion of a 
convenieut conservatory and receive from liim 


54 


Mrs. srarms of parts. 


tlie particulars of his arrangement with the 
Doctor, the plan which had been devised for 
the Count’s marriage, and the assumed ma- 
ternity of the boy — the boy, by the way, Mrs. 
Sparks had been so solicitous in recovering 
from the temptations of the street and the 
example of wretched surroundings. 

The Count appeared now to be as thorough- 
ly in earnest as he had been the night before, 
and the minutest details of the scheme were 
explained, the chances pro and con of the 
young lady’s living, and the chances, like- 
wise pro and con, of the venerable Mr. Sparks’ 
dying, to both of which propositions the con- 
clusion con in one instance and pro in the 
other being apparently satisfactory, the af- 
fectionate couple indulged in protestations of 
mutual esteem, discussed the happiness which 
would be theirs when the prospective bride of 
the one and the mediaeval husband of the other 
should be at rest and Leon, the boy, should 
be enabled -to lisp his “pa” and “ma,” sane- 


SPARKTS OF PARIS. 


55 


tioned by the priest and the Mairie, and with 
an expression of discontent that the conven- 
tionalities of society required them to return 
to the parlor, they joined the guests and were 
at once absorbed in the discussion of the 
merits of a certain Corot the hostess had re- 
cently acquired, and which evidently passed 
in the unspoken mind of some of her friends 
as the work of an obscure, though talented 
artist who found his labors more encourag- 
ingly received under the name of this brother 
painter than could possibly occur did he ego- 
tistically attach his own initials. 

Mrs. Sparks, after the Corot was determined 
to be genuine, recounted for certainly the 
twentieth time the account of her. feelings 
and actions upon the expulsion of the Jesuits, 
how she had early in the day gone to the 
Rue de Bac and displayed her sympathy by 
various feminine comments upon the action of 
the government, and expressed her willingness 
to house one or more of the homeless priests. 


56 


MRS. SPARJCS OF PARIS 


This latter, however, was urged in such a very 
timid and unassuming manner, that none of 
the ejected pities thought of taking advan- 
tage of it though, singularly enough, when 
she discovered that all had been proA-ided 
for her voice became stronger and her home 
more expansive. 

It was unnecessary for any intimation to 
be given the Count that he should remain 
beyond the departure of the other guests ; it 
had become a habit with him to do so, though 
he had the good judgment to avoid attracting 
attention to the special •hospitality he thus 
enjoyed by withdrawing at an unobserved 
moment to the retirement of an adjoining 
smoking-room, which was deserted, as the 
guests made ready to depart. 

Hardly had the last one bid his adieux, 
when the Count heard the hastening steps of 
the hostess approaching and as she threw 
herself impetuously and wearily on the 
lounge, she murmured a regret that the Doc- 


MRS. SPARKS OR PARIS. 


m 


tor had not found it possible to acq^uaint 
them that very night with the I’esult of his 
efforts with Miss d’Almaby ; in fact, her im- 
patience would hardly pennit her to await 
the morrow when there was a certainty of 
having all the information the Doctor pos- 
sessed ; until then they must be content 
with speculation, but it was assumed that it 
would be as they wished, for the very reason 
that they did wish it and they had too great 
knowledge of human nature to believe one 
hundred thousand francs would be refused. 

The idea as it was framed by the conversa- 
tion, was for the Count to take his bride for 
a short trip through Germany, possibly touch 
Switzerland, and if the malady from which 
she suffered had not by that time disposed 
of the question in its own peculiar manner, 
Italy was to be visited, where the smells and 
the fever were relied upon to aid the natural 
disease in bringing matters to a focus. 

A Galatea, strange to human dissimulation, 


68 


MRS. SPARKS OR PARIS. 


would have been surprised to have listened 
to the nonchalant disposition that was thus 
made of tAvo lives — the young lady and the 
effete husband, but the disposition was made 
in such an exceedingly agreeable tone and 
accompanied by such an effervescence of wit, 
as to bring it to the level of quite an ordinary 
affair, and when the Count lighted his cigar- 
ette and saluted his hostess for the night, 
there was no semblance to the Conspirator or 
the Nihilist in his voice — nothing in their 
manner other than the gentleman parting 
from the lady and wishing her many pleas- 
ant dreams and much anticipation of a happy 
future. 


THE COUNTESS GALLS! 


It was not until the day following that 
upon which Dr. Cold asked the hand of 
Jeanne that he returned with the Countess, 
who, in accordance with the delightfully sim- 
ple law, or possibly only custom of France, 
must conclude the bargain for her son’s wife. 
It must not be thought that the Doctor lost 
time unnecessarily, but he had professional 
duties requiring some share of his attention 
and it was late in the evening before he had 
an opportunity of advising the Countess of 
his success — so late, indeed, that the Count 
had gone to Mrs. Sparks’ social gathering, 
which, upon this one occasion, the Doctor did 
not care to join. 

There are many peculiar and to a more 

practical people, very many unnecessary be- 

( 59 ) 


60 


THE COUNTESS CALLS! 


longings to French life and manners, but 
nothing can be much more ridiculous than 
their marriage laws. Should a man attain 
the age universally allotted to humankind 
and still have the blessing of a living father, 
it would be necessary, before the son could 
indulge in the other blessing of a wife, to 
secure the written consent of that father, 
though he might be at the furthermost ends 
of the earth ; though he might be an unnat- 
ural parent Avho would delay or neglect or 
absolutely refuse to give the permission 
asked, and during this suspense the son 
would remain uncertain as to its result, and 
upon the final refusal he must sacrifice his 
feelings and resign his intended bride, or 
must reconcile himself to marry in defiance 
of a pronounced social law without his fa- 
ther’s sanction, and live with a wife whose 
claim to him would be, at least, questionable, 
and whose children would be in the eyes of 
the State, illegitimate. French society rec- 


THE COUNTESS CALLS/ 


61 


ognlzes no years of discretion, no age at whicli 
independence is assured the son or the daugh- 
ter, so long as the parent may survive. 

It was in conformity with this provision 
that the Countess de Lima called upon Jeanne 
d’ Almaby. It was merely a preliminary visit, 
a means of becoming acquainted before the 
more serious considerations were entered into; 
and by the cheerful reception, differing so 
greatly from the dignified and sorrowful tone 
anticipated by the Countess aware as she was 
of the reasons for the marriage and the con- 
venience only that had made Jeanne the affi- 
anced of her son, the acquaintance developed 
with remarkable rapidity into a feeling of 
mutual esteem and affection. 

The Countess was attracted toward the girl 
by the frankness that marked every word 
she uttered and by the evident purity of her 
thoughts, a purity unlike the simple preten- 
sions of ignorance, but with the self-respect of 
one who knowing wrong, prefers the right. 


62 


THE COUNTESS CALLS I 


It was a disposition so different to that which 
the Countess had been accustomed in society 
and appealed so forcibly to her own noble 
heart, that she instinctively prayed for her 
recovery and felt that her son in pursuit of 
a selfish end had indeed found a treasure 
w’orthy of his care. 

Jeanne, with spirits revived and the old life 
brought back into her eyes and the smile to 
her lips, listened to the words of the Countess, 
and felt with every syllable that her happi- 
ness was increasing. It appeared as if imag- 
ination must be responsible for her change. 
How could she reconcile this romantic termi- 
nation of her love % — a termination so at vari- 
ance with anything she might have looked 
for. She could hardly believe herself the 
heroine of such an incident ; she lost sight of 
the great change in her worldly condition ; 
she cared little for the privations and suffer- 
ings of the past, gave no thought to the en- 
tire relief from such in the future ; her brain, 


THE COUNTESS CALLS! 


63 


lier heart, every chord in her being capable of 
participating in the wonderful contentment 
and Joy, was thrilled with the thoughts of her 
pi’omised husband. 

The Countess was rejoiced at the apparent 
improvement in Jeanne’s spirits ; she wound 
her arms about her and told her how much 
they would love each other, and what delight- 
ful trips they would make into the country, 
and how she should have everything she re- 
quired and all the comforts that love could 
suggest ; in fact, she offered such a volume of 
promises and so painted the future in couleur 
de rose, that Jeanne knew not what to say 
and could only blush and hide her happy face 
on the shoulder of her new friend. And the 
Countess told her how good she was, and how 
kind she had been to make such sacrifices, 
and how they should always feel under ob- 
ligations to her. Then Jeanne looked up with 
a puzzled expression, replying that she her- 
self was the one upon whom the obligation 


64 


THE COUNTESS CALLS! 


Bliould rest. She had been in poverty and 
they lifted her into Inxury ; she was dead 
and they bi’ought her to life ; and, besides, 
did she not love the Count ? How could it be 
said that she had made sacrifices ! 

Then the Countess asked if it was not some- 
thing to be grateful for, that she should have 
adopted the child and given it a name — a 
right to exist. 

Slowly Jeanne raised her head and disen- 
gaged herself from the arms about her ; the 
puzzled look had been replaced by an expres- 
sion that was almost of death ; it appeared as 
though the agonies she had passed through 
had returned in a mas‘s and driven the blood 
from her body and the hope from her heart ; 
it required no assumed shock, no pretence of 
alarm ; the consciousness of what stUl re- 
mained to tell was in her mind ; she di- 
vined the story in the few words the Countess 
had uttered ; what cared she who or where 
the child was, or what the circumstances 


THE COUNTESS CALLS/ 


65 


were? it was enough that policy instead of 
love had been the motive of the Count hi 
seeking to many her. Mortification and 
shame she felt, and her life seemed to startle 
new torments that came forth upon her and 
overwhelmed her ; everything she could have 
had to live for was taken from her ; and to 
the distressing position of loneliness was 
added the unbearable horror of being united 
to a man whose thoughts, if not his words, 
would be a constant protest to her existence. 
She realized that the motive prompting the 
Count to such a step must be a strong one, 
and she understood intuitively that the se- 
lection of a bride was made entirely upon the 
assurances of short life guaranteed by the 
Doctor. She must die, as she viewed it ; to 
live would show selfishness unworthy of 
her. How could her own passion so have 
misled her brain as to cause her to believe 
the Count loved her? had she no wiser 

promptings in her own mind than the dream- 
5 


66 


tHE COUNTESS CALLS! 


ings of a love-sick giii ? why not refuse now 
to go any further ? 

And then the thought of her mother came 
before her, — a mother dying from the priva- 
tions and sufferings of poverty, — whose life 
depended on the change this marriage w^ould 
make possible— the change from starvation to 
health. 

So she controlled her anguish and said 
nothing. 

Then the Countess continued her story and 
told it all, even the hopes, or perhaps she 
hesitated about making it thus strong, and 
said merely the exjpectation of her son, that 
she should live but a few months at most ; 
and then she added her own condemnation of 
the mother of the child, her own love for 
the girl which had sprung up in her heart in 
a moment, the sweetness that had forced re- 
spect and admiration into love, and she be- 
seeched Jeanne to aid her in reclaiming the 
son ; he w'ould love her, she knew he would ; 


THE COUNTESS CALLS! 


67 


she must live : they would leave Pai'is and 
seek the climate of the South ; let her forget 
herself again, and they would unite in bring- 
ing the Count to an understanding of him- 
self and of his duties. 

To the listener all words were alike, crim- 
inations and sympathy were the same ; she 
heeded them not, nor did she seem to hear. 
She had resolved, despicable as it was, to offer 
no protest, to marry the Count. Her head 
fell again upon the shoulder of the Countess, 
and she made no effort to repress a sob. 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


Hast tlioii ever been in tbe Magasin dn 
Louvre? If not, don’t go. It is a combina- 
tion of Q-recian, Tiirkisli, and Italian brigand- 
age ; it is pure, simple, unadulterated rob- 
bery from the Rue Valois to tlie Rue de 
Marengo. It is a brutal, coulisse mode of 
thievery ; it has none of the linesse that sends 
a customer away fully aware that he has been 
squeezed of his last centime, but with a smile 
and a grim appreciation of the salesman’s 
adroitness in accomplishing it. Oh, no, there 
is nothing of that sort about this ; it is a sand- 
club and slung-shot species of desperadoism. 
A customer is hounded, followed, shadowed, 
tortured ; he is charged ten francs, and the 
store takes what it can get ; every knowm 

language on earth is thrown at him by the 
( 68 ) 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY, 


69 


most voluble, loquacious, and audacious con- 
gregation of inquisitors that were ever gath- 
ered together under one skylight ; they are 
peculiarly and distinctively French, tragic 
caricatures, truth exaggerated — still truth. 

It is the belief of many that these sales- 
people might be tried, convicted, and trans- 
ported as highwaymen, and highwaywomen 
as well, unfortunately. There are a score or 
more cashiers and each sits like a gigantic, 
all-grasping Moloch, taking in everything to 
be reached, while the victims range them- 
selves in line to give up theii; Napoleons and 
receive closely-wrapped parcels in exchange. 
The Magasin du Louvre is the quintessence 
of unprovoked outrage, and a few words ex- 
plain the cause — the clerks receive a com- 
mission on everything they sell. The ad- 
ministration of the establishment saves in 
salary and turns its customer over to a hun- 
gry, rabid mob of estrangleurs^ who are worse 
than anything Gaboriou ever conceived. 


70 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


Three months after the marriage of Jeanne 
with the Count, Mrs. Sparks felt a curiosity to 
know how the bride’s health withstood the as- 
sault of weather and an indifferent husband, 
in fact it might be said that the lady had be- 
come quite uneasy, for the Count true to his 
promise, had refused to see her or hold any 
communication with her since he had wedded 
Jeanne. 

This Count had stately notions of honor as 
peculiar in their way as those of the Duke, 
his father-in-law, and, in accordance with 
them, he had declared that so long as his wife 
lived he would lose sight of Mrs. Sparks ; but 
immediately upon her death he would return 
to his original love, — a resolution he intended 
to keep in every particular. But Mrs. Sparks 
could not help feeling uncomfortable; she 
was in that condition of uncertainty which 
was in no measure calculated to bi’ing with it 
even comparative ease of mind. If she could 
be advised of what transpired in the house- 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


71 


liold of those whom she considered her ene- 
mies, it would be some advantage certainly 
and might be of considerable value in case of 
emergency. She knew perfectly well that 
the Countess disliked — detested her, and 
would use aU the influence possible to break 
the intimacy between herself and the Count, 
even in the event of Jeanne’s death. She had 
heard that the entire family had gone to the 
South of France in search of a milder climate, 
hoping to prolong the young wife’s life or 
make her dying more easy. 

These were the thoughts running through 
the brain of Mrs. Sparks as she stood upon 
the line at the cashier’s desk of the Magasin 
du LomTe awaiting her turn to be served ; 
she was in a frame of mind to make use of 
any advantage circumstances might point out 
to her, and she was equally alert in discover- 
ing the circumstance. As her eye wandered 
unconsciously, or, at any rate, idly over the 
room, she recognized the Duke, Jeanne’s fa.- 


72 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


ther, at a distant counter examining some 
cheap pocket-pencils which the clerk was 
vigorously asserting were a real American 
product, a veritable “ brevete Americaine,” 
and urging a purchase in the regulation 
sledge-hammer form. 

The thought of using the Duke as her spy 
had, singularly enough, never occurred to Mrs. 
Si:)arks until this very moment, but now it 
came so forcibly upon her that she was in a 
fever of excitement at once, and fidgeted up 
to the desk in a natural feminine manner to 
the evident discomfiture of several gentle- 
men who had precedence by right of their 
position on the line, but who, of course, were 
unable or unwilling to urge their claim in the 
face of the determined and impulsive female. 
With change and parcel in hand, Mrs. Sparks 
fluttered over to the Duke and greeted that 
nobleman with a warmth and fervor that must 
have aroused a suspicion of its sincerity in a 
younger man, though it made no other im- 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


7B 

pression than one of the most gratifying and 
intoxicating surprise upon its present re- 
cipient, who most unceremoniously dropped 
the clerk and threw himself, metaphorically, 
into the arms of the fascinating lady. 

When men reach the age of the Duke, thoy 
become particularly susceptible to the bland- 
ishments of a pretty woman ; a coquettish 
glance or a neat foot compressed in a dainty 
boot, will suffice to throw tliem into an 
“ecstasy of rhapsody,” and they frequently 
conclude by attracting the amused attention 
of spectators by their merry ambulations (we 
may speak of this unreservedly, for we are all 
growing in years). 

The Duke sustained the record ; there 
might be a stencil made of an old gentleman’s 
actions under these circumstances, and it 
could be used -with accuracy upon every such 
occasion. It is infallible. The Duke was first 
surprised, then pleased, then tickled, finally 
confidential, and eventually suspicious that 


74 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


the crowd would discover what it had already 
known for fully ten minutes; after a while 
he looked guilty and ended the faece by 
leading the lady a-way with all the gallantry 
of the Grande Monarque. 

The Duke was voluble ; he liked to talk ; it 
was about the only occupation he had now 
and he made the most of it. This unfortu- 
nate disposition was not prompted by a desire 
or even a willingness to injure any one, it was 
simply second nature ; he couldn’t control it, 
and it accomplished an incomparable amount 
of mischief. Thus Mrs. Sparks had little 
difficulty in learning all that there was to be 
learned relating to the household of the 
Count. The bride was more contented, almost 
happy in fact. They were now’ at Jlioe. 
Jeanne was improving rapidly ; there were 
many reasons for believing that she would 
survive. The Duchesse was wdth her daughter, 
as was also the Countess, and as would like- 
wise be the Duke within a few days, or at 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


75 


least sucli was liis intention, but now having 
so fortunately encountered such an irresisti- 
bly charming companion he would fain rest 
in Paris longer and enjoy some of the autumn 
evenings upon the ever-moving boulevards. 

And he did rest, whUe Mrs. Sparks gleaned 
much information from the letters which 
found their way primarily from Nice to the 
Duke, and by him were coyly submitted to 
her. The information was not of a soothing 
character for a loving and a jealous mind ; it 
aroused her wrath and it pointed too forcibly 
toward a possible danger — a danger which 
even now had exceeded the possible and come 
within the scope of the probable. It showed 
her that the Coimt might love his wife, in- 
comprehensible as such au exaggerated or ex- 
hilarated condition of the human mind might 
seem to be — ^in France. The plausibility of 
the idea actually brought a shiver to the 
vertebra of the lady, and as the Duke had his 
favored position beside her when thjs q^ueer 


76 


A DOUBLE BOBBERY. 


thought occurred, he noticed the convulsive 
motion, and in his Senile way, strove to 
fan back the natural warmth of the human 
temperature by the sweetest and most flat- 
tering phrases. And Mrs. Sparks snuggled 
down a little closer into the coimer of het 
longe chaise, while she reverted to the young 
couj)le once again, showing her interest in 
their welfare and their contentment by a 
mitrailleusish volley of questions upon hypo- 
thetical conditions in which she placed them, 
that of bliss, fondness, amiability, love and 
ecstasj", to all of which the Duke smiled his 
replies, and rattled on about the daughter 
whom he really loved and really respected 
to the woman whom he swore he did love 
and for whom he never stopped to consider 
the depth of his respect. 

Tlie time passes very quickly in Paris, 
especially in the society of a pretty woman, 
and the Duke found that one day slipped by 
and then another and the days lengthened 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY, 


77 


themselves into weeks while he still lingered 
at the side of Mrs. Sparks. 

The witchery of her smile was irresistible 
and his afternoons were devoted to her soci- 
ety in her apartments, while the evenings 
frequently found them at the Opera or the 
Prangaise, enjoying dinner at Bignon’s, or a 
simple cream at the less pretentious Neapol- 
itaine. Occasionally they went to the extent 
of a ball, an enthusiastic ball, not one of those 
gotten up to afford reputable women an op- 
portunity of displaying charms which good 
health and possibly good living has enabled 
them to acquire, but which the conventional- 
ities of society forbid them to make public 
excepting under the particular and peculiar 
circumstances of a ball devised for charitable 
purposes. 

The Duke was not entranced by this sort of 
entertainment ; he had reached that age when 
the flowing and less cumbrous robes of the 
coryphee or the Opera-Boufle prima donna 


78 A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 

appealed witli greater artistic and estlietic 
force to liis sense of tlie beautiful. N'eitlier 
could be be cajoled into an impecunious, but 
strictly respectable, reception ; that, he ar- 
gued, was the most intolerable suffering to 
which any one was socially liable. He could 
not appreciate the modest efforts of the maid- 
ens to find in their vocabulary of words which 
had received the stamp and sanction of their 
mamiuas, sufficient to interest their attendants, 
nor could he discover a wealth of conversa- 
tional hnnior in recalling the difference be- 
tween the weather of this month and the tem- 
pestuous season of last month ; nor the ex- 
cited discussion upon the most recent Herald 
storm warming as sent by special cable for just 
such gatherings as these to waste their intel- 
lectual force in dissecting. The Huke rvas 
not opposed to these reunions because of 
pride ; he was not a proud man in that sense, 
his dignity was the bearing of a gentleman ; 
he had a contempt for those persons v ho v.’eie 


^ DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


79 


simply dignified and nothing more— that is, 
internally dignified, those who forget that 
they touch the sidewalk in common with a 
few million other living things, those whose 
soul seems to be in a constant protest against 
its confinement in so plebeian a compass as the 
body. Such persons were not at all to the 
favor of the Duke ; he felt such dignity was 
generally assumed to conceal some serious 
fault which policy forbade making prom- 
inent. 

The Duke favored the balls at the Valen- 
tino, or the Skating-Rink, at times and Just 
for the fun of the thing, Mrs. Sparks ac- 
companied him though always beneath the 
discreet protection of a mask. 

AVith ail its revelry, there is considerable 
pleasure to be had. at a masked ball ; each is 
like the other, of course, but it is a repetition 
that is too vigorous to become monotonous, 
and too brilliant to become tiresome. The 
crowd of budding youths gathers about t’ ' 


80 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


doors of the hall early in the evening, hoiking 
that some fortiiitous freak of events they 
may be aijle to pass free into tlie festivities 
which ten francs have made inaccessible to 
them by any legitimate means. Later, strag- 
gling couples, largely made tip of ‘‘ visiting 
statesmen ” from adjacent rural districts, who 
are not yet familiar with the hours kept by 
the true Parisian and cannot throw aside the 
habit of yawning at nine o’clock ; still later, 
the crowds increase on the siden^alk ; spec- 
ulators are quietly' offering admission tickets 
at an axrpreciable reduction from the regular 
prices ; the youths become more nervous and 
apprehensive of eventual failure as the strains 
of music become more pronounced ; carriages 
are formed into line, leaving and receiving 
occupants, and, finally, as time wears on, the 
sidewalk looks gloomy and cold and unin- 
viting. 

But what a sight the interior j>resents at 
the tnre French ball: the early rush, the 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


81 


crush at the coatu’oomj the crowd of attend- 
ant males craning necks around the door of 
the ladies’ dressing-room to anticipate with- 
in the pleasing costumes which will later on 
meet them upon the waxed floor of the hall ; 
the crowded dancing, wliere one is constantly 
dug in the ribs or back by the elbows of the 
dancers ; when the alarm-notes of a ipiadrille 
sound, notice the haste with which the young 
men surround a pox)ular set and their eager- 
ness in disputing the first place with their 
neighbors ; then, as the dance nears its end, 
the music becomes wilder and more hurried, 
the dancers affect an enthusiasm even if they 
do not feel it ; they develop joints entirely 
new to the human frame ; they are reckless 
of everything save the single purpose of 
astonishing the spectators ; they promenade, 
and everybody fans everybody else ; and the 
quantity of meaningless conversation that is 
indulged in is only measured by the hour. 
A valse follows and soon everything is in a 


89 


A DOUBLE BOBBERY. 


whM once more ; the long train of Marie 
Antoinette tangles about the iiesh - colored 
limbs of a dainty page, or is slung carelessly 
over the arm of a false-nosed youth with 
whom she dances — and repetitions of this 
make up the ball. 

The Duke had exhausted the list of these 
entertainments ; he had seen everything that 
was new at the theaters, from “ L’Estrangleurs 
de Paris ” to Patti or Van Zandt ; iSIrs. Sjiarks 
had no reason to complain of- his attention, 
nor on his side had he any grounds for doubt- 
ing that she really enjoyed this round of 
amusements ; the limit to his vacation had 
been set, however, and he must join his wife 
in the South. His letters from the Duchesse 
breathed all the good tidings he could wish ; 
both she and his daughter urged his hastening 
to them unconscious, of course, of the en- 
chanting imprisonment that kept him in 
Paris. 

Mrs. Sparks assisted him to get ready ; she 


A DOUJiLE ROBBERY. 


83 


did au liuiidred little things that a woman can 
do when one is preparing for a journey ; she 
suggested all sorts of economies of space, and 
insisted upon the easy packing of a score of 
useful articles so handy in traveling. She 
submitted her advice in buying a trunk ; she 
liked to go into a trunk-store, she said, it re- 
called the jjleasant trips she had taken, and 
inspired her with the anticipation of those 
she intended to take. And then she thought 
of the man who kept the store : suppose his 
■\\:as a nature that craved change, his strongest 
ambition to journey around the world and his 
Aveakest point his financial inability to do so ; 
Avhat an unspeakable torment it must be to 
him to be surrounded at all times with the 
paraphernalia of travel, to start parties upon 
the very trip he longs to take ; to hear them 
talk of the scenes they will see, the very 
scenes he has passed through in his dreams — 
and all this he must receive with a smile, a 
cordial congratulation, that he may sell a 


84 


A DOUBLE ROBBERY. 


trank. Mrs. Sparks was not hard-liearted 
when she could think so far into the possibil- 
ity of arousing a disturbing thought in the 
man’s mind by a superabundance of enthu- 
siasm, and so she controlled her spirits, and 
made no reference to the pleasure her wander- 
ings had given her, nor what the Duke might 
expect from his. 

When the Duke reached the depot ]3re- 
pared to take leave of Paris, Mrs. Sparks was 
awaiting him. She was profuse in her wishes 
for his happiness and his health, and waved 
him a graceful, while it seemed also a reluc- 
tant adieu, as he stepped upon the car. 

At the same time that he entered his com- 
partment a man of tidy appearance, though 
clearly of the working element, stepped into 
the next carriage and although the delicate 
hand of Mrs. Sparks w'as waving away the 
Duke, her eyes appeared to be fixed upon the 
stranger in the second-chiss. 


VI. 


THE LAIR OF THE ROUGHS. 

There is a section of Paris which is either 
avoided by strangers or only overlooked be- 
cause they are not aware of its existence. It 
is the Hill of Montmatre, with its unsavory 
neighborhoods, its dirty houses, subterranean 
brasseries, and its general air of dilapidated 
splendor. It may at one period have enjoyed 
a reputation for respectability, or at any rate 
for safety. Now it has no claims on either ; it 
is an outcast, or at best a nondescript. Some 
of its houses show what might have been, but 
are compelled to show it through such a mass 
of dirt that the effort in most instances is dis- 
couraged before it is born. The buildings are 
out of plumb and the tenants lay wagers upon 
the possible time of day when the walls will 

fall in. Everything betokens degeneratiouj 

1 


86 the lair or the roughs. 

decay, destruction ; the dingy, musty, tnm- 
ble-dowii wall of the Chateau Rouge marks 
the uj>i)er part of the Rue de Clignancoui't, 
and like its surroundings is only the shadow 
of what was, the feeblest reminiscence of a 
reputable past ; from the favorite of the bet- 
ter class of revelers it has become the ren- 
dezvous and the resort of roughs, male and 
female, the lowest plane of the city’s disrepu- 
table characters. 

The Chateau Rouge is a dancing-hidl, a 
cheap counterpart of the Bullier, admission 
one franc, ladies free ; the ladies have bedrag- 
gled skirts decorated with the mud of Mont- 
matre. 

When a visitor passes in who bears any re- 
semblance to the cleaner classes of society, he 
quite naturally attracts no little attention; and 
if, in the recent history of the place, such a 
visitor should have happened to be a woman, 
the attention would have been more marked 
and the astonishment shon n on the face of the 


TBE LATR OF THE ROUGHS. 


87 


doorkeeper must certainly have been extreme. 
As it was when a lady presented herself one 
evening not long before the departure of the 
Duke froni Paris, as noticed in the last 
chapter, and passed through into the dancing- 
garden with an air as nonchalant as it was 
possible for her to make it, though it failed 
utterly to impress those who noticed her with 
the idea that she was accustomed to such 
scenes, every one of the employes and most 
of the guests followed her wdth their eyes, 
and udth their tongues as Avell. The new- 
comer selected a seat, near the entrance from 
which she could see every one who entered 
and at the same time watch the dancers be- 
yond. This, it will be seen, is an easy matter 
when it is remembered that the garden is 
shaped after the letter L, the shoit arm repre- 
senting the entrance path whUe the dancing 
was going on in the longer one. 

The lady carefully scanned the faces of all 
who passed, until a man, dressed respectably 


88 


THE LAIR OF THE ROUGHS. 


and bearing the impress of contact with some- 
thing better than the present surroundings, 
took a seat beside her and engaged her in 
conversation. There is no necessity here for 
introductions, the conventionalities of a hide- 
bound society are not recognized by the spir- 
its frequenting the Chateau Rouge, neither 
are the preliminary mana'uvres ; the feints 
and hesitatings, which usuallj' accompany a 
shifting acquaintance, are unnecessary ; and 
the incident of a strange man speaking to a 
strange woman excited neither notice or com- 
ment beyond that occasioned by the clean 
skirts and neat appearance of the latter. 

The couple withdrew before many minutes 
to a corner toward which the lights conven- 
iently blinded, and the obscurity was made 
more apparent by the brilliancy about it. 
The business between them must have been 
of a nature that demanded great explanation 
on the part of the woman and undivided at- 
tention on that of the man, for had any one 


THE LAIR OF THE ROUGHS. 


listened to their words there would have been 
heard the most earnest and explicit direc- 
tions in a falsetto voice, interrupted occasion- 
ally by a controlled grunt of understanding 
or an inquiry that required a return over the 
ground the woman had already covered ; but 
she submitted to the repetition with a mild- 
ness that indicated a deep personal interest 
in having the listener comprehend her every 
syllable, — a mildness that was unnatural, for 
an active feminine brain has little patience 
with a dull masculine mind. 

Finally the man was made of one thought 
with the woman. He was by no means slow of 
comprehension, nor unwilling to exert every 
mental power to put himself in a proper con- 
dition to earn a rewnrd. Thrat reward ap- 
peared in this instance to be the incentive 
for his close attention, and the small package 
tied neatly in white paper which he received 
and carefully put away in his vest pocket, 
evidently had something to do witli the sub- 


90 


THE LAIR OF THE ROUGHS. 


ject of their conversation and no very distant 
connection with the pecuniary emoluments 
arising from the duties he was to perform, 
whatever they might be. 

Quietly the couple left the garden, left the 
revelers to their revels, and the sleepy ticket- 
seller to await another victim to his den. 
Slowly they passed down the street and 
parted only at the Boulevard de Rochechou- 
art, where the woman could take a tram 
through the Clichy and thus apjjroach near 
to her home. The man turned back to his 
apartment on the Butte, and the two, soon 
separated by half a city and a million of hu- 
man beings, were in their particular rooms 
engrossed in u single puipose and the men- 
tal telegraph which sometimes operates in 
earnest thoughts unconsciously conveyed 
ideas between them. 


VTI. 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME, 

There is a small town on the very border 
line between France and Italy, and about 
half a mile outside the limit of French gov- 
ernment, knovm as Vintimiglia. It is a place 
of no possible importance excepting as the 
very first station on Italian soil, the terminus 
of the French railroad coming from Mentone, 
the point where cars are changed for Genoa, 
Florence, and Southern Italy. There is a 
waiting-room and a telegraph office ; the 
waiting-room is entered from the front, the 
telegraph oiSce from behind. The road for 
carriages and wagons starting at the door of 
the telegraph office extends up a hill where 
the town, so far as there is any town, is to be 
found. At one time this point, it is believed, 
possessed some considerable military import- 

m 


92 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. 


ance, but that was so long ago as to reflect no 
glory upon it to-clay. 

The scenery between Mentone and Vinti- 
miglia is wonderfully beautiful ; mountains 
extending up to the clouds, it seems, and 
with faces of ragged and jagged rock perpen- 
dicularly rising out of wild and almost im- 
penetrable forests, and at irregular distances 
giant trees And soil suflicient to sustain them 
on these stony cliffs. Paths which look like 
a foothold and are but little more, cross the 
face of the mountains at a tremendous height, 
and along this precarious and uncertain ledge 
the peasants from the district thereabouts 
hasten with packs or parcels and exchange 
visits with neighbors in the adjoining coun- 
try, or should their eirands lie at the foot of 
the cliffs, they descend upon rope ladders 
hanging against the face of the mountains. 
These evidences of a daring civilization are 
picturesque and indicate a hardy and a fear- 
less people, 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME, 


93 


There are castles upon these mountains 
that saw the mediaeval wars and shielded the 
knights of invading armies or resisted the en- 
croaches of an enemy ; and now these castles, 
dismantled, in majestic ruins and moss-cov- 
ered, are serving their country as telegraph 
poles : the ever-joresent cross-arms with the 
glass conductors are nailed against the tot- 
tering walls, and the modern wires tangle 
with the vines and growths of centuries, de- 
tracting very seriously from the romance one 
might otherwise build about the scene. It 
is rather difficult to reconcile our idea of the 
presence of the Goths and Vandals with an 
accompaniment of nineteenth-century appli- 
ances. 

It was in the midst of these surroundings 
that the Count had taken his wife and his 
mother, rented a delightful little house over- 
looking the Mediterranean, with capacious 
grounds about it and a charming garden 
from which the sea seemed to be close at 


94 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. 


hand. Jeanne would sit for hours in the 
summer-house of this garden reading, cro- 
cheting, occupying her mind to the physical 
advantage of her body, becoming gradually 
stronger, better, more contented ; the boy she 
already loved, the Countess she had learned 
to respect, her husband had shown real de- 
votion in his attentions ; every thought added 
to her comfort and was born, so it appeared, 
for her benefit ; he romped with Gaston over 
the grass and among the flowers, he read the 
very latest novels to his wife and exhausted 
the resources of Daudet with a smattering of 
the lesser and more pungent authors ; he 
made up short excursions to the forests and 
mountains where Jeanne could ride and en- 
joy the scenery, and talk and laugh and look 
upon life as more promising and worth living 
after all. The Count made her little pres- 
ents — trifles bought from the natives there- 
abouts — pretty evidences of their skill with 
the penknife, or examples of their appreci- 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME, 


95 


ation of color, in themselves valueless articles 
often but precious to Jeanne as tokens of a 
growing affection, an affection to which she 
Avas entitled by her sacrifice, her sweetness, 
her OAvn love. And the Count had no diffi- 
culty in paying these attentions ; it was no 
effort upon his x)art to show a regard which 
he began to feel ; no need to simulate a ten- 
derness more earnest than that he in reality 
felt. He was on the verge of falling in 
love with his wife — queer Frenchman,’’ one 
would involuntarily say. 

Jeanne, on her part, permitted no oppor- 
tunity to pass which offered an excuse for 
showing her love for her husband, not in a 
pretentious nor an obtrusive way, still less in 
a supplicating or sentimental manner did she 
evince this feeling ; errors she would never 
have been guilty of nor the Count allow to 
attract him. Mrs. Sj)arks had made use of 
those agencies in her experiences and they 
had been successful, but it is extremely doubt- 


96 


THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. 


ful whether Jeanne with her comparative lack 
of worldly knowdedge could have competed 
with her rival had she adopted the same mode 
of warfare. It is usually the case when a 
woman who has no right to it seeks the at- 
tention of a man who has no right to give it, 
that she employs demonstrative means of ac- 
complishing her pui-pose. Should she be 
pretty, witty, or possess other qualities which 
make her company desirable, as it usually is, 
these tactics appeal to the pride of the man 
and he succumbs. Jeanne appealed to her 
husband’s honor, Mrs. Sparks to his appetite 
— the result of such a competition nine times 
out of ten is foregone. 

The boy in Jeanne had found a mother, 
tender, considerate and kind ; he had learned 
to love her; he called her by endearing names; 
he seemed unhappy when away from her. 
The infection of such a spirit in thb honse- 
hold is likely to be all-pervading, and it may 
account in a measure for the ease with which 


THE SCEKE OF THE CRIME. 


97 


the boy’s father was learning to love. The 
Count’s niother had been the first to catch the 
inspiration ; in truth, she originated it, for 
never had danghter-in-law" been received more 
thankfully, more appreciatively than into this 
very family. The home had become har- 
monious, happy ; the visiting mother-in-law 
was well received by the resident mother-in- 
law ; the Duchesse w'as improving in health, 
the balmy breezes of the Mediterranean had 
brought strength to her again ; the regular 
living, of which she had been deprived for so 
long, was a valuable ingredient in the recu- 
perating prescription ; there appeared to be 
one of those sudden changes in fortune Avhen 
ev^erything transpires just as it should, and 
every one feels a joyous buoyancy with the 
thought that something further of the same 
nature is about to happen, Avithout having 
any defined suspicion what it is to be, and 
after the day or the week or the month has 

gone it is still impossible to say what it Avas 

7 


98 


THE SCENE OF THE CR/EtE. 


or whetiier it ever occurred. Sucli hallucina 
tions liave been known to exist for several 
days, as a rule tbey are limited to a few 
liours. 

This was the state of affairs when the Duke 
reached Vintimiglia. 


vin. 


THE TWO ACCOMPLIOES. 

When an old gentleman has been released 
from the burdens of suiDporting the style of a 
past generation in the city and relaxes his 
mind and limbs in the country, he is very 
liable to be frolicsome and juvenile until the 
strangeness of the situation wears off ; this is 
particularly the case when the old gentleman 
in question has accomplished the conquest 
of a particularly bright and charming lady 
whose heart he is conscious of possessing, al- 
though he may be separated from her by 
great distances. 

Influenced by the bracing air of the moun- 
tains and the joyfulness of his own mind, 
the Duke spent his days in flitting about 
from one point to another and indulging in 

such frequent and^ often such questionable 

( 99 ) 


100 the two accomplices. 

jokes tliat tlie Diicliesse toolv occasion to de- 
clare against the very evident dissiT)alion that 
it betokened, tmd jocosely upbraided her hus- 
band for assumed waywardness since she had 
been absent from Paris, when in truth the 
idea of such a charge having any ground to 
stand upon never entered her innocent soul. 
The Duke, however, nearly admitted the 
breach of decorum by his earnestness in dis- 
puting it, although it was with a perceptible 
degree of pride that he heard the charge 
made and by the employment of various little 
tricks and subterfuges he led his wife back 
to the subject frequently, so that the friends 
might learn of his capacity for being wicked 
even though he might deny his guilt. 

The Duke was a good man ; he loved his 
daughter and his wife, and their happiness 
Avas his own ; he had his peculiarities — many 
of them — yet they were not of the obtrusive 
sort ; he would persist in wiping the napkin 
over his plate at the table after turning it at 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


101 


an angle witli tlie light so as to discover any 
neglect by the maid ; he insisted npon frnit 
ont of season upon the claim that enjoyment 
was entirely a process of the imagination, and 
while no one really found pleasure in the 
biting cold of December or the intolerable 
heat of August, yet in winter one could con- 
jure the possible advantages of summer, of 
sitting beneath the genial shade of an olive 
or wandering on the flowered bank of a favor- 
ite brook, but to attune the mind to such a 
contemplation one must be reclining before a 
crackling fire, one must hear at the same mo- 
ment the wind howling without and be con- 
scious that a heavy snow is upon the groiind, 
and above all, one must be eating strawberries 
while his thoughts are busy with such scenes. 
These were idiosyncrasies bringing harm to 
no one and a considerable quantity of hallu- 
cinated comfort to the gentleman himself. 

A few days after the Duke’s arrival he 
brought to the house a man whom he said 


102 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


had come to him highly recommended by a 
friend at Paris as a competent and efficient 
waiter, and knowing that the Count wished 
such help he was thus presented as an appli- 
cant. Two very important points were not 
referred to, one of which the Duke was 
cognizant, the “friend in Paris” was Mrs. 
Sparks ; the other, of which the Duke was 
ignorant, the waiter was the man met by that 
lady at the Chateau Rouge. 

The man was presentable and seemed to 
possess many qualifications for the position ; 
he was humble and obliging — ubiquitously 
so--insinuating and attentive. His ability to 
arrange the table during the meal, rid it of 
crumbs and float his napkin in the face of 
the guests at the very moment when some de- 
licious dish appealed to their attention, was 
developed to that degree of perfection that 
would qualify him for a first-rate waitership 
in one of the best of the boulevard restaurants. 

The boulevard waiters, by the way, have 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


103 


their oddities and yet they are a type of the 
class throughout the world ; the business, or 
trade, or profession, or whatever its followers 
choose to term it, has been dragged down 
from the days of Glanymedes, until it rests 
upon the very subsoil of human nature. A 
waiter, from ranking with the gods has be- 
come a meddling, hanging-about, fee-expect- 
ant, blackmailing nuisance; he pawns his 
manhood for a sou and makes no pretence of 
redeeming it ; is distinguished from the beg- 
gar who accosts us on the street only in his 
capacity to give us greater annoyance ; we 
purchase his groveling attention daily for a 
score of years by the bestowal of a small cop- 
per coin, and should we one day neglect to 
provide ourselves with this diurnal offering, 
he will leave us to get into our overcoat alone 
and ignore our very existence, wherein he is 
as the rest of the world, though quicker ; he 
polishes his soiled face with the napkin he 
uses later upon the iffates, and should a sud- 


104 


THE nvo ACCOMPLICES. 


den sliower make it necessary to lower tire 
awnings before tlie Cafe de la Paix, he util- 
izes the same napkin in removing the drops 
caught upon his neck and clothes ; he stands 
at our chair and looks and sighs and moves 
the glasses, and does a multitude of other 
things designed to attract our thoughts to his 
physical presence and his personal poverty. 
Still we give him his sou for policy, it guar- 
antees hot soup and relieves him of the ne- 
cessity of putting sand in our coffee; we 
leave, glad to get away from him, and he sees 
us go equally glad to be rid of us. Tliere is 
a modesty withal about the waiter that keeps 
him from asserting his independence outside 
his restaurant, and excepting when he is occa- 
sionally arrested for murdering one of his 
wives in a fit of jealousy, he is an unassuming 
tyrant. 

Has any one noticed the peaceful eccentric- 
ities of the waiter ? There is a tautological 
one (if such may be its title) in the unneces- 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


105 


sary repetition of a word ; for example, in or- 
dering the substantial course at table d’hdte, 
the waiter invariably repeats the numeral of 
the order, as “ deux roti, deux,” or “ trois roti, 
trois,” as the case may be, or when he calls 
for that most delicious of French desserts, it 
is “Poire Conde, poire.” He loses his bal- 
ance unless his words run their course. With 
these few exceptions the waiter is void of 
romance and without interest as a study in 
natural history. 

Such a man was Louis St. Martin, intro- 
duced by Mrs. Sparks, advocated by the 
Duke, and now attendant upon the Count. 
His evil propensities, if he had any, he care- 
fully concealed ; he was ever-present, watch- 
ful and attentive, and within a week from 
the day he became one of the household, he 
had ingratiated himself so completely into 
the favor of his employers that they looked 
upon him as an exceptional servant and 
themselves as particularly favored. 


106 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


Jeanne, who had foiind in the invigorating 
air of the mountains such exhilaration of 
mind, of a sudden lost her animation and 
became moody, melancholy, and despondent ; 
the tenderest attentions from her friends 
failed to raise the lethargy that had settled 
upon her, and the saddest days since her 
marriage, those when she learned that her 
husband had wedded her for merely selfish 
and, in a measure, commercial reasons, showed 
no plainer marks of despair than those now 
limned upon her face. The recovery of her 
physical health was not retarded by the con- 
dition of her mind ; she increased in flesh ; she 
gathered strength ; it seemed to be as they all 
could wish excepting the terrible, the wearing 
melancholy of her face. Wliy had this sudden 
change come upon her % It was inexplicable ; 
it had appeared only since the advent of 
Louis, yet what possible influence could Louis 
have with Jeanne ? 

In truth, this question never occurred to 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 107 

them ; the coming of the waiter was in no 
way connected in I heir thoughts with the un- 
happy condition of the patient, either chron- 
ologically or otherwise. Was not Louis an 
ordinary servant in a very ordinary position, 
and was Jeanne a woman to be influenced 
from such a source % It seemed that her mind 
was poisoned against her husband; she avoid- 
ed him ; she unconsciously shrank away when 
he approached, and gave many other invol- 
untary evidences that she had learned to 
dread him. It was impossible to disguise 
such repugnance and he was sorely perplexed 
for an explanation ; his words had expressed 
nothing but kindness, and his actions were 
prompted only by her wishes and intended 
to result in some sort of pleasure to her ; he 
rejoiced at her returning health and had al- 
ready laid plans for their enjoyment when 
they should leave Vintimiglia. Her treatment 
surprised and pained him; he sought vainly 
for a solution ; she denied the charge when 


108 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES, 


lie questioned her, and then she turned froin 
him with an effort so illy disguised to control 
the evidence of her abhorrence as to give de- 
nial to the reply. 

Suspicion is seldom a successful detective ; 
it shapes events to correspond with its hastily 
formed opinions and loses sight of the bear- 
ing these same events would have if con- 
sidered without prejudice. Suspicion in a 
woman is disposed to be final ; its very exist- 
ence is generally an assurance to the female 
mind of its truth, else, it is urged, why should 
it be born \ 

Jeanne had every reason for the most 
gloomy thoughts, whatever they might be ; 
the Count had taken no care to nourish his 
early feelings toward her in secret and this 
memory was too recent to be dissipated by 
his later kindly acts. An ungenerous dispo- 
sition when once exposed, is not readily 
atoned for even by later evidences of the most 
unselfish interest. 


THE T]VO ACCOMPLICES. 


109 


But wliat could be the subject of Jeanne’s 
thoughts ? This question ever uppermost 
with him, he had sought vainly to answer ; 
he had shown her the most careful attention, 
he had urged that she regularly and carefully 
follow the daily prescri];)tions of the physi- 
cian ; he had noted with satisfaction the ben- 
efits of those remedies and their help to her 
returning strength. He marked her hesitan- 
cy in accepting the medicines and the reluc- 
tance mth which she received his advice ; he 
argued with her neglect, and urged her to be 
more careful of the directions given only for 
her own good; he could divine no reason 
other than the natural one which prompts 
every one to decline noxious doses that would 
inspire her to such vigorous objections, and 
he sought to persuade her that children 
only permitted such considerations to stand 
in the way of healthful efforts ; he exliausted 
his fund of argument that she might do as 
he wished. He persisted with a persistency 


110 


THE T]VO ACCOMPLICES. 


that must liave been i^roiiipted by the purest 
or the vilest motives, and Jeanne finally under- 
stood it thus, for she reeoininenced upon the 
draughts prepared for her ; she no longer 
threw them upon the ground as had been her 
wont, but she sought her hus'band at each re- 
currence of the hour and only in his iDiesence 
would she force upon herself the objection- 
able dose ; and as he saw her his face would 
brighten and he would look happier for the 
rest of the day ; while her spirits would sink 
lower and she would weep and withdraw to 
the seclusion of her room, devoui’ed, it seemed, 
with the unhappiest thoughts, although to 
learn their import was a task beyond the 
power of those about her. 

One day she had been unusually sad, un- 
usually reserved ; the Countess, the Duke, 
her father, and the Duchesse, her mother, to- 
gether with the Doctor and her husband, were 
enjoying the breezes and the views from the 
charming Idosk upon the grounds, when 


THE TWO ACCOMPLICES. 


Ill 


Louis brought the mixture ordered by the 
physician. Slowly Jeanne carried the goblet 
to her lips, looking withal at her husband 
with an earnest, hopefiil, almost supplicating 
and finally a rebellious expression as she saw 
the doiint permitted her to drink with no pro- 
test and no effort to stay her hand. Then 
her feelings could be no longer repressed, 
’twas impossible to control her passion, and 
swallowing half the contents of the glass she 
pushed the goblet toward the Doctor crying 
in a voice wavering with excitement, that the 
liqiiid was poison forced upon her by her hus- 
band that she might the sooner die ; and, 
gathering all her scorn and strength into her 
words, she poured them forth in a volume of 
recrimination until exhausted, unnerved and 
hopeless she sank upon the ground uncon- 
scious before their startled and astonished 
eyes. 


IX. 


HER TRIP SOUTH. 

Mrs. Sparks had received strange reports 
from Louis. Since her parting witli him at 
the railroad station her days had been made 
Tip of excitement and she had abandoned even 
the diverting society of her admirers, so un- 
settled and nervous had she become. She 
sought every opportunity for solitude and 
thought : she must think, or she must die ! 
She had taken a step that would affect her 
whole life ; she must brood over it and talk 
to herself of it ; the attentions and converse 
of others were insufferable. Interruption 
from her husband she did not fear ; experi- 
ence had given him infallible signs by which 
to discover when his presence was oppiortune 
and when on the other hand it was least 

desirable. These signs were never marked 
( 113 ) 


HER TRIP SOUTH. 


113 


idtli greater clearness tlian at this very mo- 
ment when every one of them pointed toward 
his own seclnsive chambers, and taught to ob- 
serve iiiKpiestioned the mute commands of his 
wife, he withdrew to them. 

His wife had long since disi)osed of him in 
her mind and his nnobtriisive, harmless ex- 
istence was measured by that of the strug- 
gling girl at Vintimiglia, the girl of whose 
imiDortance he knew nothing, of whose very 
being he v/as probably in total ignorance. 

Mrs. Sparks heard from Louis with con- 
siderable frequency, and the reports were such 
as to gratify and encourage her. Yet Louis 
was not her only means of information : she 
had coiTesponded with the Duke regularly, 
and from him had learned much that helped 
her to determine the actual condition of affairs 
in this small Italian town. The Duke’s letters 
breathed of his devotion, passion exuded 
from every stroke of his pen and all subjects 

which might be hinted at ever so obscurely in 
8 


114 


HER TRIP SOUTH. 


liis words finally led to the absorbing topic of 
his love. Mrs. Sparks would impatiently run 
through these lines ; she could barely resti’ain 
the impulse to respond to the old man as her 
feelings dictated, or to ignore him altogether, 
but she was desirous of information that the 
Duke could give her and which he did give 
her, although it came in exceedingly small 
quantities and acted a part so emphatically 
secondary to his protestations of affection as 
to make it hardly worth her search. 

However, the coi’respondence was con- 
tinued and from it Mrs. Sparks learned of 
Jeanne’s peculiar melancholy, of her aversion 
for the Count, of her sHange condition ap- 
parently failing while still unmistakably gath- 
ering flesh and strength ; she learned of the 
devotion shown by Louis and the confidence 
placed in him by every member of the family. 
AU that the Duke did write substantiated the 
more business-like and much more welcome 
accounts sent by her accomplice. She had 


■HER TRIP SOUTH 


m 

iieard nothing from the Count directly, but 
this did not surprise her ; she knew that so 
long as Jeanne lived she need expect no at- 
tention from him which would in any degree 
encroach upon the rights of his wife. 

Mrs. Sparks had remained passive hereto- 
fore ; her contribution to the scheme she had 
set on foot consisted of the ideas; upon Louis 
devolved the labor, and upon the Duke, un- 
consciously, tlie task of keeping her fresh in 
the mind of the Count by freqiient and flat- 
tering allusions to her attractive qualities and 
her enchanting manners. Now, however, the 
moment had arrived for her to take an active 
part ; advices from her two emissaries told 
her of the sensational scene accompanying 
the discovery that Jeanne had been poisoned, 
and the consternation with which every one 
heard the startling accusation of her husband. 
They both told of it, but how different was 
their tone ! Louis expressed fear that the be- 
lief in the criminality of the Count might be 


116 


HER TRIP SOUTH. 


dissipated by an investigation, while the Duke, 
compelled for once to make love subservient 
to facts, tilled his letter with the most vigor- 
ous denunciation of his son-in-law and ex- 
pressed the hope that Jeanne might recover 
(although that indeed appeared unlikely), and 
that her husband might be punished for this 
most infamous of crimes. 

The Duke unquestionably believed in the 
guilt of the Count, and it was not unreason- 
able for Mrs. Sparks to draw the conclusion 
that this feeling was entertained by all those 
who had been present at the time Jeanne so 
tragically declared her suspicions. So long 
as her participation was not suspected and 
Louis escaped being drawn into it, she felt 
reasonably contented, and while she w'ould 
have preferred that the use of poison had 
been a secret until after Jeanne’s death at 
any rate, yet as it had become known it had 
fortunately assumed such a complexion as 
promised to free her entirely foom any danger 


ffER TRIP SOUTH. 


117 


of discovery, and attacMng to the Count 
the infamy of having poisoned his wife, would 
serve to place him lai’gely in her power. 
She pictured him when deserted by friends, 
scorned and avoided by acquaintances, turn- 
ing to her in his loneliness as the only friendly 
hand held out to welcome him, hers the only 
door open to receive him. 

All this, however, brought her back to her 
original position — Jeanne must die ; this ne- 
cessity arose as the sine qua non of every 
proposition : it was the stepping-stone to all 
her projects, the one chapter that was alike 
in all the volumes outlined in her mind for 
her future life. There was one more effort 
she seemed called upon to make, to the best 
of her unaided judgment it appeared desirable 
that she should be near to Louis. Such action 
would serve her in a double sense, she would 
be so situated that it might be possible for 
her to npproach the Count to revive the in- 
fluence she once had over his life ; and while 


113 HEK TRIP SOUTB. 

encoiiragiiig Louis to, tlie consummation of 
the plot, be in a position to take advantage of 
its first success. 

Mrs. Sparks was forced to the necessity of 
making up her own mind without the aid of 
foreign advice, that much-vaunted assistant 
useless or disregarded in the majority of cases 
and only partially followed in the balance. 
Yet it is a satisfaction to the mind to seek the 
stamp of approval upon its deductions from 
other thoughtful brains. Whether this ap- 
proval be required by one as an assurance of 
his uwn correct reasoning seldom enters into 
the proposition; the advice is sought with the 
idea of avoiding the feeling of isolation which 
comes without it, and when received if it 
agrees with the Judgment already, formed 
there is applause ; but, upon the other hand, 
if it is opposed, the sneer is unmistakable. In 
offering advice the adviser assumes the risk 
of being called a fool and that, too, without 
any prosx)ective compensating profit. 


HER TRIP SOUTH, 


119 


Mrs. Sx)arks was far ahead of her genera- 
tion in the ideas that inspired her independ- 
ence, and so she was able to smother her tem- 
porary desire for sympathy and prepare to 
leave Paris for the South without delay. Tlie 
preparations she had to make were so few 
that they were completed before the close of 
the day, and with the sim^dest directions to 
her husband, acknowledged v/ith all the ser- 
vility of which he was capable, she left him 
and the city over the same route taken by 
the Duke and Louis and journeyed toward 
Vintimiglia with all the speed of an express. 
She stopped for an hour or two at Mar- 
seilles, strolled about the spncious plaza sur- 
rounding the station and studied the propor- 
tions of the enormous convent upon the oppo- 
site hill ; she wandered along the dusty road 
a few rods, and then retracing her steps to the 
depot, she followed the Boulevard du Nord 
Dugomier to the flower-market at the corner 
of the Allee de Meilhan, and thence by the 


120 


H£R TRIP SOUTH. 


Rue Cannebiere to those immense basins 
M'liere lie the shipping that gives Marseilles 
its importance. 

Her mind Avas now too miich occuj)ied with 
thoughts of her approaching trials to notice 
the peculiarities of the country through Avhich 
she was passing. Nice was left far behind, 
and Monaco, Monte Carlo, and Mentone fol- 
lowed each other in quick succession. At the 
latter place she found it necessary to change 
cars for the short train here made up to carry 
through passengers between the last toAvn in 
France and the first town in Italy. This, 
however, was the interruption of a few mo- 
ments only, and very soon she was whirling 
along betAveen the romantic heights lining 
the AA'ay of the road. 

With what thoughts could she have stepped 
from her compartment Avhen Vintimiglia wus 
proclaimed ! "What must have been the pas- 
sion that railed her mind ! How she must 
have envied the moment Avhen she Avould be 


HER TRIP SOUTH. 


121 


leaving the place and the result of her work, 
whether it be for or against her, would be 
known and would have been accoinj)lished. 
The mental strain that she felt, but so ad- 
mirably concealed, would make an unsuccess- 
ful conclusion were the other denied her 
preferable to the wearing anxiety of uncer- 
tainty. 


X, 


THE COUNT BELIEVED. 

Louis in. the meantime had prepared him- 
self to meet Mrs. Sparks, and hoped by put- 
ting forward other efforts than those already 
attempted he might be able to make a report 
worthy of his errand. Since the discovery 
Jeanne had made he found little opportunity 
to use the poison, although he had several 
times endeavored to do so as boldly as he felt 
was safe and still avoid absolute detection. 
The results, however, were most unpromising; 
Jeanne continued to improve and Mrs. Sparks 
drew nearer every hour. Finally, in the very 
fever of uncertainty and the resolution born 
of a knowledge that something, however des- 
perate, must be done Louis, unconscious that 
Di’. Cold watched him from a convenient and 

hidden corner, mixed in the glass containing 
( 122 ) 


'JHE COUNT RELIEVED. 12o 

a remedy of the Doctor’s prescribing a quan- 
tity of arsenic as would promise to an im- 
patient heir the speediest solution of his 
doubts, and then glancing in every direction 
to know that he was escaping unseen, he care- 
fully stepped aside into the capacious butler’s 
pantry and disappeared in the neighborhood 
of the kitchen. The mistake Louis made was 
one common to evil-doers — all his shrewdness 
was called forth after the deed and was 
brought forward to aid in his escape, while, 
unfortunately for him, he had neglected to 
exert a share of that watchfulness as a pre- 
liminary precaution against any one witness- 
ing his act rather than his movements after 
the act. This oversight gave the Doctor an 
opportunity of detecting him and following 
into the room as he stepped into the pantry. 

It was not many minutes before Dr. Cold 
was in his own chamber and examining the 
contents of the glass, the whole story was 
made plain to him so soon as he* detected 


124 


THE COUNT RELIEVED. 


Louis mixing tlie powder with Jeanne’s med- 
icine. He had never known anything of the 
connection between Louis and Mrs. Sparks, 
but being acquainted with all tlie i>articnlars 
of the Count’s aifairs, he naturally drew con- 
clusions which show^ed that lady in the light 
of a woman with a grievance, and a reason as 
well as a purpose in ridding herself of a liv- 
ing obstacle to the attainment of her under- 
stood wishes. There was little doubt in his 
mind as to the justice of his reasoning; lie 
felt that he was right in his conclusions and 
every moment’s consideration strengthened 
this feeling. The detection of arsenic in the 
glass was a comparatively easy matter, and 
with it the entire secret of Jeanne’s wonder 
ful recovery and yet depressed condition of 
mind was made clear ; he knew that under 
certain conditions arsenic if used in quanti- 
ties sufficient was a cure for consumption, 
but the uncertainty of finding the proper 
condition bn the part of the patient and the 


THE COUNT RELIEVED, 


125 


added danger in using the quantity of poison 
necessary, place obstacles in the way of ein- 
l^loying this remedy that render the knowl- 
edge of it practically useless. If it were 
possible to utilize, or if it were safe to take 
advantage of the curative qualities in arsenic, 
many cases of consumption now fatal might 
be ultimately cured. 

The Doctor hesitated as to the best course 
for him to follow, whether it were better to 
denounce the fellow openly before the family, 
and thus clear the Count to every one who 
heard the awful charges of his wife ; or wheth- 
er, on the other hand, to make the discovery 
known only to Jeanne and leave it to her 
woman-wit to explain away the apparent 
culpability of her husband. The objection 
to the first plan Avas clear, inasmuch as it 
would acquaint the Duchesse with an incident 
in the marriage of which she was now igno- 
rant and it was desirable that she should re- 
main so, while the additional disagreeable 


126 


THE COUNT RELIEVED. 


feature of opening an old and a most unsa- 
vory subject, led the Doctor to the very rea- 
sonable resolve to consult Jeanne herself and 
act as she might consider best in the case. 

Taking advantage of the privileges accord- 
ed a physician, the Doctor sought Jeanne in 
her room and in the plainest, most direct 
words unfolded the plot to her as he saw it, 
referring to Mrs. Sparks’ necessary connec- 
tion with it and relying upon the good com- 
mon-sense of his listener neither to shun the 
fullest details of the association between her 
husband and his former infatuation, nor to 
avoid a discussion of the very poAverful rea- 
sons she would have for wishing her, Jeanne, 
out of the world. 

It was such a well-developed case that the 
Doctor had little difficulty in bringing the wife 
to his way of thinking, and while it is a feel- 
ing by no means conducive to comfort to 
know there is an enemy seeking one’s life, 
yet it is far better that the seeking be act- 


I'llE COUNT RELIEVED. 


137 


tiated by the spirit with which Mrs. Sparks 
was filled than by the promptings of a hus- 
band, and Jeanne so fully realized this that 
she was tempted to give way to rather extrav- 
agant demonstrations of joy even before she 
had ajiplied the final test to the suspicion — 
interviewing Louis, which, of course, occurred 
to her at once upon the recital of the Doctor’s 
terrible story. 

It was quite an ordinary message that to 
Louis to go to his mistress’ room, and the 
presence of the Doctor did not for a moment 
disconcert him ; but suspicion or an uncom- 
fortable sensation of gathering trouble came 
to him when the Doctor locked the door and 
directed him to take a seat. He was then 
treated to a short discourse upon the various 
means employed in detecting the different 
poisons and very simple explanations of how 
the presence of arsenic, for example, might 
be determined ; these explanations being ac- 
companied by a working out of the solution 


128 


THE COUNT RELIEVED. 


before Louis’ own eyes, with an absolute con- 
viction to his mind that the glass being shown 
him contained with its apparently harmless 
medicine, a sufficient quantity of arsenic to 
hill a healthy person — the Doctor did not 
say it was also sufficient to cure an unhealthy 
one. 

Then without indicating in his words or 
manner the slightest doubt or hesitancy as to 
the absolute certainty of his question, the 
Doctor very abruptly asked Louis how he 
could have so far forgotten his personal safety 
as to embark in any such vicious piece of 
work, and especially at the persuasion and in 
the pay of a person so uncertain as Mrs. 
Sparks. The Doctor, before giving his thor- 
oughly frightened hearer an opportunity for 
reply, followed up his queries with a hint 
that his participation in the crime had long 
been known and the delay in accusing him 
had been brought about merely by the search 
for evidence to criminate his accomplice. It 


THE COUNT RELIEVED. 


129 


was very natural that in Louis’ mind the 
conclusion would be reached that this evi- 
dence had been procured, and with Mrs. 
Sparks certainly powerless and possibly in 
the hands of the law his only hope lay in 
making an acknowledgment of the offence, 
an explanation of the entire affair so far as 
his knowledge extended and throwing him- 
self, figuratively, on their mercy. 

AVhen an accomplice begins to confess, es- 
pecially when he has any suspicion that his 
confession is number two instead of bearing 
the simpler preceding numeral, there is gen- 
erally a volubility of accusations that over- 
whelms the poor listener and appals him by 
the cold-blooded recital ; not necessarily be- 
cause it is cold-blooded, but because it is told 
in such haste and with such particular regard 
for details, all prompted by the fear that 
anything short of a veritable carnival of 
crime will be discredited. The care with 

which a confession is crowded with situations 
9 


130 


THE COUNT RELIEVED. 


and tlie anxiety on tlie part of the narrator 
that every protest should be understood, is 
positively distressing and Louis, reconvinced 
with every word that he was talking for his 
life, piled up his facts, cririlinating himself 
and Mrs. Sparks alone and adding such proof 
of the Count’s innocence as quite to convince 
and delight Jeanne. It was her first impulse 
to go to her husband and acknowledge the 
wrong she had done him, but the Doctor, who 
had divined her thought, w^hispered to her 
that he had other plans and better, he be- 
lieved, which he w'ould explain after they had 
finished mth Louis. 

But Louis had finished with himself ; he 
had exhausted his information ; there was 
nothing further that he could tell. Why 
Mrs. Sparks washed to make away with 
Jeanne was a question it had never occurred 
to him to ask ; he was working for a stated 
sum, and it was sufficient for him to know 
that the punishment awaiting him, if discov- 


THE COUNT RELIEVED, 


131 


ered, would he just precisely the same wheth- 
er the reasons held by his employer were 
valid or useless.^ He knew and cared nothing 
beyond a possibility of reaching ten thousand 
francs. So he made no attempt at an expla- 
nation which would cover this phase of the 
case, he merely dropped his head, disposed of 
his hands very clumsily, and remained silent 
until a few words from the Doctor dismissed 
him, but with the injunction that he make no 
attempt to leave the town. 

The Doctor’s reasons for withholding the 
particulars of the plot from the Count were 
frankly given to Jeanne. He considered that 
the information would create such a feeling 
of indignation within him that he would for- 
get the prudence the singular circumstances 
surrounding the case should inspire and 
would publish the scandal by his own words, 
assuring a publicity which might by careful 
management be avoided. The same argument 
was good as against the prosecution of Louis; 


132 


THE COUNT RELIEVED, 


it were far better to allow liim to escape pim- 
ishment than furnish the papers with gossip 
by causing his arrest ; he unquestionably 
would seek Mrs. Sparks at once and acquaint 
her with the discovery ; this might serve to 
put an end to her scheming hopes, and insure, 
at least, an armed peace thereafter. 


XL 


MURDER! 

It was not necessary for Jeanne to explain 
anything to lier linsband ; it was all-sniScient 
that her action toward him should be more 
wifely and more devoted than it had been for 
many weeks. The Count, with that knowl- 
edge of the female character which comes from 
an extended acquaintance with the sex, at- 
tributed her changed conduct to a freak simi- 
lar in its kind birt agreeably different in its 
result to that from which she had just been 
freed ; he was so happy in the new phase of 
her feelings that the thoxrght of going into an 
investigation as to the cause was not for 
a moment entertained. Within twenty-four 
hours from the time Loxiis had confessed his 

attempted crime there was not a more loving 

( 133 ) 


MURDER! 


1:34 

couple in the country than Jeanne and the 
Count. 

Louis on liis part had sought some relief 
from a distracted mind in exercise, and 
walked rapidly down the road that led to the 
town. The more he thought the faster he 
walked, and yet the faster he walked the less 
possibility there seemed to be of escaping his 
thoughts. His brain worked in unison wdth 
his legs. He was too deep in the consideration 
of his faults and what he was pleased to term 
his troubles, to notice the lady who, veiled 
and wdth a parasol held closely over her head, 
passed him, stopped, turned, and called his 
name. 

It seemed natural that this voice should in- 
terrupt his reverie : ’twas to this w'oman who 
accosted him that he attached all the blame 
for his present position ; her name, her face 
were uppeimost in his mind. It was no sur- 
prise in his excited condition that Mrs. Sparks 
should be in Vintimiglia ; had his cooler self 


MURDER! 


135 


been in control lie might have wondered at 
her presence ; he would have speculated as to 
its object and possibly found in it a menace 
to himself. As it happened, however, he was 
in that inflamed state when nothing could 
surprise him and the most unnatural event 
would seem to be the most commonplace. 

At the sound of his name he turned and 
without a word of preface or greeting he re-^ 
counted the happenings of the morning ; he 
told how everything had been discovered ; 
that they stood then practically convicted by 
his own confession of a most outrageous and 
infamous offence ; he enlarged upon the 
danger menacing them and Anally told her 
of his promise to the Doctor not to leave 
the town without proper permission to do so, 
a promise, he continued, of which he should 
seek to be relieved and urged Mrs. Sparks 
to leave with him that very day. Disap- 
pointed, surprised, and hopeless, she felt it 
were best to retrace her steiis, and with no 


136 


MURDER ! 


otlier comment than an illy-repressed sigh, 
Mrs. Sparks told Louis she would return to 
Paris that night and he was at liberty to re- 
turn Avith her. 

And then, as if a second thought presented 
itself, she motioned Louis to accompany her. 
Wrapped in the gloomiest thoughts the con- 
federates and allies speechless, one from fear, 
the other from baflB^ed hatred and needless 
crime, directed their steps toward a clump of 
trees that could be seen at the terminus of a 
branching road and not more than an eighth 
of a mile distant. 

Flowers blossomed at every side and the 
radiance of their tints, the sweet aroma they 
spread upon the air made the path inviting 
even to the guilty thoughts of those two 
wanderers. Great trees spread their rich 
leaves above and bearing bushes borne down 
with wealth of luscious berries sprang from 
the mellow soil. 

Nature was at her best, the skies were of 


MURDER ! 


187 


the clearest, the breezes came with the soft- 
ness of the snow and each breath was freighted 
with relief for parched mankind; nothing was 
wanting to make the hour more lovely or the 
time more restful for the human mind. ’Twas 
such a day as mid-summer gives when most 
disposed to favor those who revel in her 
warmth ; ’twas such a day as should dispel 
all evil cravings and discourage foul-faced 
crime in all the world. 

And yet upon this day, stopping now and 
then abstractedly to pluck a daisy or a wild- 
rose from the ground, Mrs. Sparks coldly and 
unflinchingly went her way planning the 
surest means of accomplishing, even at this 
stage, all that she had laid out to do ere 
she ventured upon the succession of crimes 
that marked the past few weeks and aimed 
at the life of an unoffending fellow-being. 
The flowers she tore impatiently apart, she 
crushed the odorous petals in her clenched 
fists and bore her heel deep iiito the yield- 


138 


MURDER l 


ing soil at every step; tempestuous violence 
was marked in each movement, and as she 
flung the mutilated shrub aside ’twas with a 
nervous and a vicious air that showed too 
well the anger stirring in her heart. 

Louis silently and sullenly followed with 
less outward sign of feeling ; with him there 
weighed no sentiment to heap fuel on the 
flames of disappointment; his sting of defeat 
was caused only by the loss of a promised 
reward, — it was as though any other specula- 
tion went astray; he had put in his time and 
his life, the latter merely incidentally how- 
ever, against his employer’s ten thousand 
francs and failed to realize ; he had lost, it’s 
true, he felt galled, outraged, swindled by 
Nature, he was sore with the loss ; he had 
counted upon the cash as his, he was abso- 
lutely as sure of it as though it were in his 
own pocket or had gone to purchase for him 
an interest in the Chateau Eouge, he had 
never permitted a doubt to enter his mind 


MURDER! 


139 


as to its possession, lie had looked upon 
himself as a capitalist to the extent of ten 
thousand francs ; after the money was prom- 
ised he considered it earned, the simple pro- 
cess of acquiring it by labor was to him not 
worthy a moment’s thought, — it had been 
guaranteed, that was the great obstacle over- 
come. 

The world is full of just such people as 
Louis, people who crave an object, and the 
very craving assures acquirement, in their 
mind ; or having an agreement with employ- 
ers for a certain sum contingent upon certain 
work, they count the imaginary dollars in 
their trembling brain — and fail to earn them. 
Such men live ever in the future, subsisting 
in ease of body and of mind upon the yet-to- 
be-attained profits of a lively anticipation. 

And so this queer team trudged on, trudged, 
sighed, groaned, swore, but still they trudged, 
and finally reaching the clump of sheltering 
trees Mrs. Sparks turned savagely and fiercely 


140 MURDER 1 

on lier comjDanion, poured forth the uncorked 
venom of a year’s control, stamped her shapely 
foot and shook her fist, that white and pow- 
erless fist, at imaginary foes whose faces Sh6 
saw upon the sky. 

’Twould have gone hard with the Duke had 
he chanced that way at the moment. 

And her fury spent itself. ’Twas like the 
cyclone, destructive for a moment, and then, 
’twas calm. 

Again she turned upon Louis, but this 
time there was moderation in her voice and 
wisdom in her utterances. Rapidly she re- 
cited their failure, the loss both had suffered, 
the money that might have been his, the 
luxury and ease it would have brought him, 
the opportunity to see foreign parts and 
means to wed that buxom ticket-seller at the 
Garden. If ever female Faust toyed by 
means of golden baubles ■with a masculine 
Marguerite, Mrs. Sparks played that shrewd 
and seductive part in "true perfection. 


MURDER! 


141 


Nor did she stop at the promise of reward 
and the vision of luxury to be gained by the 
possession of wealth ; she played upon his 
fears, his doubts, his timidity ; she pictured 
the punishment of attempted crime and 
showed the dangers encompassing him even 
in the failure of his plot. What if the Count 
should know of it ? Would he be so ready to 
conceal the circumstances, would he shield 
a murderer for the sake of secrecy? And 
wdiat relief would Louis seek in the event 
of prosecution? (she put it ^^persecution”). 
Had he the means to leave the country, had 
he even the wherewithal to make defence ? 

These questions found distressful answers 
in Louis’ soul ; he realized the slippery ground 
on which he stood ; he was sufficiently fami- 
liar with law, and French law in particular, to 
recognize the insecurity of his position and 
the uncertainty of his neck, or at the least his 
liberty. He pondered upon this while Mrs. 
Sparks talked and as she ceased with a final 


142 


MURDER ! 


and eontemj)tnons hiss that Avas intended to 
he directed to Jeanne and a cowardly world, 
but was apiu’opiiated in all its meaning by 
her frightened listener, he leapt from the 
log upon which he had been sitting listlessly 
kicking at the sod and in a voice that left 
no doubt of earnestness, declared his wulling- 
ness to return to the cottage and complete his 
work if some plan coidd be devised tliat 
would permit it ; he loudly affirmed his te- 
merity, his courage, his absolute indifference 
to consequences, and the while his limbs 
trembled as though he already stood upon the 
guillotine and saw the vision of another life 
pictured ujAon the air. 

He had none of the stamina belonging to a 
great criminal ; his courage was of a low 
order ; it was a mean, spasmodic courage, 
lu’ompted by the sight of a golden incentive, 
and liable to whine and whimper in the pres- 
ence of discovery. Still, he had einbai’ked in 
the undertaking ; he had already gone far 


MURDER ! 


143 


enough to entitle him to life seryitude if not 
to the severer penalty, and he had jnst suffi- 
cient nerve left to make another effort ; and as 
he signified his willingness to do it, he stood 
in meek expectancy awaiting the comments 
of his abler conspirator. 

Mrs. Sparks v/as too far wrought up to 
hesitate and in her most impassioned man- 
ner she poured forth a volume of suggestions, 
directions, commands, that fairly took away 
the breath of the absorbent Louis and caused 
his stubby and scanty hair to perpendicular- 
ize itself. She flaunted the sanguinary rag in 
his very face ; slie almost committed murder 
on her companion in her excitem.ent ; she be- 
came so infuriated in her very thoughts that 
her words flowed one into the other with un- 
distinguishable confusion, and she was often 
forced to interrupt the continuity of her re- 
cital by the inability of Louis to catch her 
meaning, or by her own lack of breath. 

They sat upon a mossy stump and as she 


144 


MURDER! 


talked Loiiis studied tlie grass, bent a willow 
twig between liis fingers, pushed his hat buck 
upon his head, softly u histled and paid strict 
attention to her words. If his confession to 
the Doctor had been a carnival of crime, hers 
was now a bloodthirsty and callous recital of 
the most atrocious ideas that ever blotted the 
mind of man or escaped from the revengefnl 
heart of woman. 

Nor were her comments brief ; she dwelt 
upon each particular, and fearful that his 
comprehension would not grasp the eccen- 
tricities of the task, she enlarged and revelled 
in the murderous enterprise and summed it 
up in the final direction that Louis take a 
phial she drew from her pocket and pressed 
into his hand. 

’Twas Prussic .acid and in its potent drops 
there lurked destruction for a score of ene- 
mies ; no mercy could be extracted from that 
relentless bit of fluid, no curative virtue 
dwelt beneath the confining stopper. It was 


MURDER! 


146 


sure death this time and Mrs. Sparks in- 
tended there should be no unconscious phi- 
lanthropy in the dosing. She wanted Louis 
to revisit the house at once, quickly, before 
Doctor Cold should have forgotten his can • 
tion and proclaimed the situation to the wind; 
and when there to pour the poison in Jeanne’s 
glass, her coffee, her medicine, anything she 
would be likely to eat or to drink ; if she 
but tasted the mixture, it was all that would 
be necessary. 

Mrs. Sparks never gave thought to the un- 
usual risk this new move meant ; she was des- 
perate and she was alone, practically alone 
for Louis counted as an exceedingly small 
item in her thoughts ; there was nothing 
near her to excite her fear or apprehension. 
The solitude of the place, the absolute quiet 
of the woods, the absence of humankind, it 
all made her recklesaof results. And besides, 
she was not of the cool and calculating sort ; 

she plunged rather than waded in ; slie never 
10 


146 


MURDER! 


hesitated when once the prompting came for 
good or bad act ; she did it and she pondered 
on it afterward. 

Such is the disposition that has made the 
world, the impulsive, the quick to temper or 
to kindly deed, those who are easily imposed 
upon, who are ever ready to resent and equally 
ready to forgive, it is from men and women 
of those promptings that great things may be 
expected, permanent great things ; perhaps 
they may not personally benefit or suffer by 
them, but the world will. If these prompt- 
ings be pure, so much the better ; if they be 
evil — so much the woi’se. 

The cold-blooded man who never permits a 
word to escape him that is not capable of con- 
version into some other meaning, who never 
writes a syllable that is not copied ere it 
leaves his hand, who never makes a promise 
or gives an opinion without a season of labo- 
rious gestation, who employs a mental mid- 
wife at the birth of every idea, who regards 


MURDER! 


14 ? 


deliberation as wisdom, that man may ac- 
complish something for himself, but he will 
pass from earth without leaving any memory 
of his deeds and without having done that 
which would benefit the mind or body of any 
one left behind him. 

If his inclinations tend toward murder he 
will succeed in being hanged early in the 
game. 

With violent passions Mrs. Sparks had ex- 
treme feelings ; when not swayed by anger 
she was either in the most buoyant and brill- 
iant good humor or in the most desperate 
and dejected despair ; in either she indulged 
in unmeasured condemnation and hopeless 
predictions or in extravagant anticipations 
of an impossible future. When every day ap- 
peared bright and no trouble crossed her skies 
she sneered at those who felt that life was 
tiresome, and claimed when her burden be- 
came an irksome one she would relieve it by 
suicide without making it a subject of com- 


148 


MURDER! 


plaint. But when that day arrived her the- 
ories were no support in her despondency 
and she lacked the courage to break the bonds 
that attached her to the world. She wanted 
to die, but at the vital moment she decided 
that old age were a calmer means of death 
than the stiletto or the poisoned cup. 

Now she was in her furious mood : whatever 
came was welcQme ; her own life was nothing 
in the balance ’gainst revenge ; the life of 
Louis was still less, in fact she looked upon 
him as a thing rather than a creature, he was 
an ever-present reminder of the happiness 
arising from the condition of being a fool and 
unconscious of it. 

But Louis was not an ordinary fool, he was 
of the avaricious type and being so he lost 
no time in setting out for the scene of his 
late villainy and his future crime. With the 
strong bottle tightly clutched in his pocket 
he hastened along the road ; he stopped not, 
neither did he turn to either side, and Mrs. 


MURDER r 


i4d 


Sparks followed him with her eyes until he 
passed from sight, then she threw herself 
upon the grass and wept in the paroxysms of 
her disappointed rage. 

That’s the consequence in women I 


The Doctor was somewhat surprised to see 
Louis come back to the house, but when he 
questioned him upon his wanderings about 
the village and. the object of his return, Louis 
gave such humble and contrite replies and 
such positive assurance of his speedy packing 
and departure for the north, that the Doctor 
was thrown quite off his guard and permitted 
the fellow to go around the place unmolested 
and unwatched. 

Louis made the most of his opportunity ; 
he prepared his few goods for removal ; he 
avoided the Count, for that party not being 
acquainted with the tragic side of his services 


160 


MURDER! 


knew nothing of the waiter’s discharge and 
was to be left with the impression that the 
man quietly and withoxit reason had sur- 
rendered the position voluntarily. 

There was little life in the grounds that 
afternoon ; the aged Duke dozed upon the 
lounge in his own bed-room ; the siesta of the 
Duchesse was taken beneath the shade of an 
olive tree in the garden ; the Countess had 
retired to her apartment, and the Count with 
Jeanne had strolled over in the direction of 
^ gypsy encampment upon an opposite hill. 

It was a delightful afternoon and murder 
seemed out of place in such a sunshine j there 
was nothing in the atmosphere that would 
turn the thoughts to desperate deeds. Louis 
felt the influence of the day and as he real- 
ized that it would weaken his nerve and bring 
his timorous instincts to the hindrance of his 
undertaking, he hastened to complete the 
mission he had embarked upon. 

Through the avenue of trees that led to the 


MURDER! 


IBl 

distant road Louis saw the Count and Jeanne 
approaching. They strolled along the grassy 
path in perfect freedom from disturbing 
tliought, and with their arms entwined about 
each other as lovers^ not wedded couples, are 
wont to do. They were earnest in their con- 
versation and bent willing and anxious ears 
to their mutual utterances. Every moment 
they came nearer and every moment the 
chance was lessening' for Louis’ success. 

Noiselessly he stole into the cottage, and 
Avitli a stealthy step he sought Jeanne’s dress- 
ing-room where he knew the goblet of medi- 
cine would be found. Nor was he mistaken, 
for there upon the dressing-case a glass half 
filled with a milk-white liquid stood as the 
Doctor had iDrepared it a few hours before. 

This time there were no intruders upon his 
crime near by, no watchful eye marked his 
actions and no danger lurked behind the un- 
closed door ; he was alone ; his most careful 
scrutiny satisfied him of that and as he drew 


163 


MURDER! 


the precious bottle from its concealment, he 
looked again about him with great bulging 
eyes and fearful longing on his face, as though 
he felt a hand upon his shoulder and heard 
the voice of justice ringing in his ears. 

Quickly he stepped to the window and 
loosened the cork from its imprisonment ; he 
poured the contents of the phial into the glass 
before him. 

But hark ! A step ; the sound of a footfall 
in the adjoining room; a soft sound, as though 
whoever it was approaching had muffled feet 
to conceal their coming. 

Cold and clammy, with the perspiration of 
alarm and fright, Louis sprang into the hall 
and on the stairs. He stopped when thus at 
a safe distance and watched the coming of 
whoever it might be. 

The steps came nearer and nearer, and in a 
moment there toddled into the room from the 
bed-chamber beyond, the little boy, the child 
of all this strife, Mrs, Sparks’ chiW, the boy 


MURDER! 


16 ^ 


to wliom Jeanne had been a mother, and for 
whom she might have sacrificed her life. 

The young one stared about, rubbing his 
eyes with his little fists; he made his slow way 
toward the window from whence he caught 
sight of Jeanne and his father coming over 
the lawn. He pounded the pane with his 
hands and laughed and shouted when respon- 
sive signs showed him that his own had been 
observed. Turning to greet his pai’ents at the 
door, his eye caught sight of the milky mix- 
ture near him. Thirsty from his prolonged 
nap, he seized the goblet and before the 
startled and horrified exclamation from Louis 
could be borne the distance, he drained it to 
the bottom. 

A shriek that sounded as though it might 
be the tearing asunder of every vein in the 
delicate body, rang through the house; the 
goblet crashed to the floor and the boy fell 
dead upon its splinters. The Doctor, aroused 
from his writings, rushed forth from his closet 


154 


MURDERi 


in time to see Louis leaping down tlie stairs 
and bursting from the house. A glance was 
sufficient to show the death, and the cause 
was apparent in the broken goblet. 

By the time the Count and Jeanne reached 
the room the Doctor had laid the boy upon 
the bed he had left but a few moments be- 
fore, and giving no explanation of either the 
occurrence or his own actions he left the 
hoxise and followed as rapidly as he could the 
direction Louis had taken. 


It was hours to Mrs. Sparks as she waited 
in the little clump of woods and strained her 
eyes toward the distant house of the man for 
whom she had risked so much. She paced 
up and down the narrow path ; she enacted in 
her mind the scene that was at that moment 
pei’haps transpiring almost within reach of 
her voice. 


MURDER / 


155 

The horrors of the situation had time 
to grow upon her, and she had been able 
to comprehend them in all their details. 
What if Louis were successful? He might 
escape, she had the money in her pock- 
et, and he could leave France that very 
night. In that event she would be safe. 
Safe that is unless he chose to make de- 
mands upon her for the future, unless he 
required money too frequently, unless with 
an exaggerated conception of her wealth 
he insisted upon amounts she could not com- 
mand. 

And if unsuccessful ! Doomed to a life 
separated from the man she loved, doomed and 
aged by her crime and its miscarriage, still in 
the power of Louis and known for Avhat she 
was to Doctor Cold and Jeanne. 

In either event her future was frightful ! 

Twenty times these thoughts rushed through 
her mind, she knew their truth, she saw the 
warning in every situation, and yet she could 


156 


MURDER! 


not draw back, she would not, and she did 
not. 

Suddenly from the growth of tall grass and 
brush that skirted the road she saw Louis 
spring over an intervening fence and hurry 
toward her. His face told of something dread- 
ful, something uncanny and gruesome. She 
saw by his hard and set expression that he 
had accomplished his errand and left destruc- 
tion behind him, and when she saw it she fell 
upon her knees and thanked Heaven for the 
permission to success. 

In another moment Louis was with her, 
breathless, exhausted, his face as the face of a 
dead man, his legs trembling as they never 
trembled before. 

She rained questions upon him and he an- 
swered not for some moments, then he told the 
whole story, how he had reached the house, 
sought the room, poisoned the milk, and then, 
of course, unconscious of the relationship, he 
told of the frightful death of the boy^ 


MURDER / 


157 


But he could go no further. Mrs. Sparks, 
with the cry of a wounded animal, flew at 
him, and with the mad and blinded fury of a 
brute she struck and clawed him until he 
fell to the ground with the suddenness and 
• violence of the assault. 

And then she fainted beside him. 

Eecovering himself in a few moments, Louis 
rose to his feet as quickly as his wounds per- 
mitted. The first object that met his eye was 
Doctor Cold, followed by a number of men 
running down the road two-thirds of a mile 
distant. 

What to do he must decide quickly, and 
to secure the money Mrs. Sparks carried with 
her was the first necessity. He stooped and 
asked her for it ; he told her those were ap- 
proaching who would seize and imprison him, 
he told her he had followed her directions 
and he was not responsible for the mistake. 

He looked and his pursuers were but a half 
mile from him !‘ 


168 


MURDER I 


But Mrs. Sparks refused, nay, more, ske 
strove to arise and recumbent as she was she 
struggled to strike him a deadly blow. And 
Louis seized her by the throat, and with each 
demand for the money he clasped his lingers 
tighter. Then he searched beneath her dress 
for the little chamois bag containing the roll 
of bills, and when he tore it from its stitches 
leapt to his feet. 

Mrs. Sparks lay motionless before him, and 
in the exultation of securing the prize he 
savagely kicked her lifeless fonn. 

She was dead. 

Louis ran to the bushes to find an outlet in 
the direction away from that whence the Doc- 
tor’s party was coming, now only an eighth of 
a mile distant. 

As he reached the undergrowth and was 
stooping to force a passage through it, he was 
stopped by a stern command and he looked 
down the muzzle of a rifle to two cold steady 
eyes at its stock. He made a dash to go 


MUkDKk} 


169 


around tlie weapon, when a report rang sliaip 
on tlie air and when the Doctor reached the 
spot he found Louis stretched beside his 
employer. 


THE END, 


THE 


CRIME OF CHANCE. 

BY 

MISS Krancbs M. PKARD, 

Author of “The Rose Garden/' “ Unawares, or the Notary’s Plot,” “The 
Squire’s Daughter, or the Mystery of Thorpe Regis,” etc. 


One Volume, l 2 mo, paper cover, ----- 25 Cents. 
Bound in extra cloth, full gilt side and back, . 50 Cents. 


EXTRACTS FROM PRESS NOTICES. 

“The book is finely written, and exceptionally high in tone, and shows 
in the character of Rachel a keen sense of humor, which reminds the reader 
of some of George Eliot’s earliest works.” 

“ It is a story of sadness, love, and ultimate joy, and a thoroughly good 
%»ne in its teaching, having the charm of novelty, freshness, and interest, 
that few novelists can impart. The ‘Crime of Chance’ belongs to the 
higher type. In some respects it presents not a bad imitation of the style 
and fidelity to nature of George Eliot.” 

“ The characters are firmly, admirably drawn, and the story is one which 
must easily appeal to the sympathies of all readers of finer sensibilities. 
The two children, the hero, Rachel and Hestor, are painted with a brush 
handled with excellent judgment and skill.” — Tiavellcr. 

“ The ‘ Crime of Chance ' is one of those quiet stories of English country 
life that imperceptibly win upon the reader’s regard, and finally leaves him 
thoroughly fascinated. It opens with a description of an old farm and its 
quaint inhabitants, and the impression they make on a little city boy who, 
having lost his parents, comes there to’ live with his uncle, Mr. Philip 
Oldfield. Philip Oldfield’s sad history is the chief subject of the book. The 
remorse that weighs him down, his unhappy love and seemingly blighted 
life, are all brought gradually before the reader, in the most natural and un- 
sensational manner, deeply moving his sympathies and interest. Som.e 
charming bits of nature are sketched in, rendering the work altogether a 
most readable and desirable one.” 

“ The story is English, ‘and has some account of poachers and gypsies, and 
uses a little waif from their resorts as an instrument in Philip’s recovery. 
His character is studied psychologically in the vein and force Hawthorne 
showed in the ‘Scarlet Letter,’ and his posthumous novel. The description 
of life and scenery is pleasing, there is no straining after effect, and the tale 
has the merit of strong and absorbing interest in its perusal, and deserves 
nothing but the highest praise ” 


The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United SMes 
or Canada, on receipt of the price.. 





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